Jumping the Broom
by MrsTater
Summary: Newly engaged to Remus, Tonks finds the path to the altar fraught with more complications than she imagined. Particularly in the way of friends and family...
1. Crossing the Threshold

_I realized this morning that I promised ages ago to post a Remus/Tonks wedding fic_ _I'd written even longer ago than that, for the March 2008 Not Forgotten ficathon at RT CHallenge, inspired by Loreena McKennitt's gorgeous song, Never-ending Road. It completely slipped my mind to post it! This takes place between Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows_, _and is in Caring For Magical Creatures 'verse, but all you really need to know about that is that Remus and Tonks began dating during Prisoner of Azkaban and then carried on their relationship in secret after he resigned from Hogwarts. Many thanks to **Godricgal**__for beta reading. There are five chapters of this, and I hope you enjoy them!

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**1. Crossing the Threshold**

"You have _got_ to start asking security questions when people knock on your door," said Tonks, slipping inside the flat from which her housemate had bellowed an unvigilant _Come in!_

Desdemona, stood in the open plan kitchen heating a tin of beans with her wand, made a show of rolling her wide brown eyes. "You owled me five minutes ago to say you were on your way. I knew it was you."

Tonks rolled her eyes back as she wriggled out of her boots without bothering to undo the laces. "As if Death Eaters don't forge owls."

She stripped off her robes, and when they slipped off the cloak tree, left them lying in a rumpled heap. They'd be packed up in her rucksack soon enough, anyway. Yanking her tie loose, she undid the top button of her collar.

"Why would sodding Death Eaters come after _me_?" Des asked, for what had to be the millionth time since the war began. "I'm a _Zabini_, for bleeding Merlin's sake!"

She flicked her wand over her shoulder at the cooker behind her, and two slices of toast flew from the grill onto a plate.

"And why can't you use the damn Floo like a normal person?" Des asked petulantly, also for the millionth time, though in the much shorter time span of the few days since the new regulations had been handed down from the Department of Magical Transportation.

"Normal people _don't_ use the Floo anymore," Tonks said. "Could you do me some toast? I didn't get lunch. _Or_ dinner."

"Bread's out." Des heaped spoonfuls of steaming beans onto her toast and crammed a large bite into her wide, broad-lipped mouth. "What then? Making one of your statements on social equality by refusing to use the Floo since it's no longer available to all magical folk?"

"Something like that."

Grabbing some bread from the flimsy plastic bag, Tonks managed to gouge a slice with her fingernail. She flung the bread under the hot grill and as she watched it brown, tried not to think about how her cessation to travel via Floo represented her -- the Order's -- growing distrust for the Ministry of Magic. Of course she couldn't quite manage not to, given that it was also the perfect segue into something very important she had to say to Des. Which had a lot to do with her less-than-perky mood, as she'd been brooding over it during every minute of the day she'd been able to spare a thought.

_Not_ every _minute,_ said her heart, and she felt the cold, leaden vice that had been clamped onto it sometime in the course of the last year loosen its grip as warmth bubbled up from deep within. _How many of your spare thoughts turned to Remus asking you to marry him last night?_

At the tug of a smile at the corners of her mouth, everything in Tonks tightened again as she automatically squelched it. As she'd been forced to all day.

"If you're going to be that careless--"

"_Defiant,_" interrupted Des around another mouthful of beans-on-toast, "not careless. Aren't you always saying fear's how those effing terrorists operate? If I change how I live my life, if I can't even answer my own effing _front door_ without asking some effing stupid security question anyone who's done their homework could answer, then they've won, haven't they? I know you're his protégée and all, but if you _really_ want to put these Death Eater bastards in their place, you won't let yourself turn into Mad-Eye Moody, Junior."

Tonks couldn't stop herself smiling, though she did have to bite her tongue to keep from saying Des would make a damn good Order member. Because Des would make a _crap_ Order member. You had to be willing to stick up two fingers not just to the Death Eaters but to the Ministry, as well. Des might talk like a rebel, but she was too thoroughly Hufflepuff to subvert her government. True, in Hogwarts days she'd helped Tonks plan mischief, but Des never did any mischief herself, earning her reputation for an ability to behave and winning the coveted position of prefect. If only Professor Sprout had known what Des claimed to have got up to in the prefects' bathroom with Charlie Weasley...

"Oi," Des' voice, muffled with food, cut into Tonks' musing. "You might like your bread well-done, but I don't want my flat stinking like burnt toast."

"Damn it!" Tonks aimed her wand at the blackening slices of bread on the smoking grill. "_Extinguo!_"

The blue flame of the cooker went out. She summoned a knife and began to scrape off the charred layer of her toast. Out the corner of her eye she saw Des' mouth open, most likely to scoff at Tonks' waste-not mentality. Before Des could get a word out, Tonks spoke:

"It's just as well, then, since I am quite as paranoid as Mad-Eye, and I can't make toast without burning it, that I'm moving out."

Des gawped in stunned disbelief, but her hand shot out to catch the bite of toast that fell out, sparing the linoleum from a globby mess of beans.

"Sorry," said Des, giving her head a little shake that rattled the beads at the ends of her cornrow plaits. "I thought you just said you were moving out. What'd you really say?"

"That is what I really said."

Popping her beans-on-toast into her mouth and licking off her fingers, Des let out a strangled laugh. She swallowed, then folded her long, dark arms, so striking against the pale turquoise t-shirt across her chest, half-hiding the slogan: _The Tutshill Tornados Give Me a Whirl._ The whites of her eyes seemed very prominent as they widened, the brown irises focused as they fixed Tonks with a stare.

"Why?"

Tonks hesitated.

_Go on, then. You've been going over your story all day. Or some of the day. When you weren't daydreaming about proposals. You lie to people all the time. And this isn't even really a total lie._

But something in Des' sharp eyes and clipped words said that she knew exactly why, and would call Tonks on bending the truth.

Still, Tonks blurted, "I'm too dangerous for you, Des."

Even if the thin, sculpted eyebrow hadn't raised on Des' high, smooth brown forehead, Tonks would have cringed at the absurdity of _that_ phrase coming out her own mouth.

_What in Merlin's name possessed you?_

"_Too bloody dangerous?_" Des snorted. "Did Remus lend you that one?"

Something in Tonks' chest tied itself into a thick, tight knot. "As an Auror I'm a target--"

"Bollocks, Tonks! A little respect, please. I might've dropped out of the Healer programme to be a Quidditch Mediwitch, but I'm not a bleeding idiot! You're part of that Phoenix Society lot -- don't you dare try and deny it!"

Though Tonks was perfectly aware of how rampant rumour was these days, had seen her name printed in _Daily Prophet_ columns theorising about the members of Dumbledore's secret society, had even been questioned at work, it still knocked her for six that Des sussed her. Des was so often away from home, travelling with the Tutshill Tornados, that Tonks thought her pattern of extra shifts at "work" would go undetected.

_Are you_ really _surprised? Your name did get splashed across the front pages for weeks after the Department of Mysteries battle:_

_"AUROR NYMPHADORA TONKS INJURED DEULLING DEATH EATERS ALONGSIDE 'INNOCENT' COUSIN SIRIUS BLACK"_

_"WIZENGAMOT CLEARS AURORS SHACKLEBOLT AND TONKS OF SUSPICIOUS LIASONS CHARGE AT BEHEST OF DUMBLEDORE"_

_"AURORS ABROAD: SHACKLEBOLT TO GUARD MUGGLE MINISTER, TONKS HOGWARTS -- HONOUR, OR EXILE?"_

_And those were the polite ones. Point being: anyone who can read would suspect you._

It was just that Tonks had never seen Des read anything but _Quidditch Illustrated -- Swimsuit Edition._

Not that Des would _have_ to have read a bloody thing. She'd visited Tonks in hospital, and might well have found the whole thing off. Though she could have fooled Tonks that she'd thought about anything except the fact that Tonks had been secretly seeing Remus for two years whilst leading everyone to believe they'd been through a very messy break-up following his resignation from Hogwarts. Des had been _furious_ -- and hurt. The harsh lines of her face had shifted subtly, so subtly that only a life-long friend would notice, revealing the pain of betrayal.

Just like now.

_No wonder Remus suspected Slytherin when he first met you, Tonks, you deceitful, self-protecting little weasel! Some Hufflepuff you are._

Feeling a corresponding pang in her constricted heart, Tonks let out a deep breath and leant back against the larder door.

"Okay," she said. "I'm sorry. I do owe you the truth. But it's the _Order_ of the Phoenix."

"Whatever." Des' frown deepened, eyes narrowing accusatorially. "You're moving in with Remus -- aren't you?"

Tonks stiffened. Remus was _not_ supposed to come into this.

_You owe her the truth._

_But not_ this _part of the truth._

_The_ whole _truth_.

"You can't hide that, either," said Des. "I saw you with him at the funeral, holding hands. What the bloody hell happened? Last Christmas we had a proper heart-to-heart and you said you were going to let go of that loser once and for all."

Tonks' neck and shoulders tensed as gritted her teeth in protest of Des talking about Remus like that.

_Now, now, Tonks -- let's not add misplaced anger to your list of Wrongs Against Your Best Mate Des. It's a direct quote, after all -- from you. She's the one that skipped out on that posh Christmas party at the Tornados' captain's penthouse to drink the night away with you at the Hog's Head. Because she was too worried about you to party._

Which, from Des, was saying rather a lot.

Even so, Tonks could bring herself to do no more than grudgingly admit, "I was pretty drunk when I said that."

"Drunk's a synonym for wised-up."

"Yeah, but you don't _stay_ drunk, do you?"

"No," said Des. "I reckon not. Though maybe you should've, since you didn't get over him sober. Why not, Tonks? Didn't you _try_?"

Tonks shook her head. If she were to go into the whys and wherefores for not trying to get over Remus, they wouldn't leave this flat till the landlords threw them out for not paying rent because they'd been holed up here gabbing instead of earning money.

So, Tonks summarised, "Giving up on Remus made as much sense to me as giving up on the war." Throwing back her shoulders, she went on, "Anyway we're Hufflepuffs, right? We don't give up on anything or anyone."

Des straightened up to her full height as her hands found their way to her curvy hips. "We do if we're becoming little sad doormats to toss-pots who don't have the stones to marry us!"

"He has," Tonks whispered.

"He has what?"

"Asked me to marry him."

Never before had Tonks seen a jaw in such real danger of hitting the floor. One of Des' hands slid off her hip, and hung like a weight at her side; the other found the workspace, and she leant heavily against it.

"Remus..." Des began but then, drawing in a sharp breath, shut her mouth again, pinching her lips tightly together.

"Asked me to marry him."

Tonks heart pounding with mingled dread and delight. Mostly delight. It had happened late last night, a whisper between soft post-coital kisses beneath the sheets, which had led to another round of celebratory love-making that spent the last of their energy. An early call in to work hadn't given her the chance to tell anyone.

_Not that there are many people you_ can _tell_.

"D'you have a ring?" Des asked, round eyes darting down to Tonks' left hand.

But before Des could glimpse the bare fourth finger, she shook her head, barrelled the single stride across the kitchen, and grabbed Tonks by the shoulders with a pincer-like grip.

"Have you gone completely _mental_, Tonks? You can't marry him, he's a bloody _werewolf!_"

"I noticed," Tonks said, surprising herself with how calm she felt. _Course you've had a lot of practice, haven't you, what with him saying the same thing for a year and a half._ "And I don't care."

"No, I mean you _can't_," Des argued, long, curved fuchsia fingernails digging into Tonks' arms. "The Ministry won't allow it. Haven't you paid attention to how anti-werewolf they've been since Fenrir Greyback killed that kid last March?"

Had she bloody _paid attention_? Tonks doubted the Werewolf Capture Unit were as informed about the Ministry's anti-werewolf sentiments as she was. In fact, she'd been terrified that Remus would be arrested at Dumbledore's funeral as an accomplice to Greyback in the Death Eaters' break-in to the school. She hadn't breathed a word of that fear to him, of course, and she sure as hell wasn't going to say so to Des.

"The Ministry aren't going to be party to it," she said, chin jutting defiantly as she folded her arms across her chest. "Now will you please let go of me?"

Des did as she was bidden, but continued to look at Tonks with her eyebrow arched in scepticism of Tonks' sanity.

"What do your parents think?"

"Doesn't matter."

"You haven't told them."

Bristling at the accusation that laced Des' tone and narrowed her eyes, Tonks shot back, "No, and you'd better keep your big mouth shut."

Something flickered, subtly, on Des' face, which made Tonks wish her words unsaid.

_That's not fair. Des Flooed your parents about you last spring with your best interests at heart. Even if the very last thing you needed then was an earful from your mum and your dad being one more factor on your list of reasons why you were bloody terrified for Remus' life. If you'd just kept in touch with them yourself, Des wouldn't have gone and mucked things up._

"I'm sorry," Tonks said. "I just...want to tell them myself. I'm going to. We're going over there tomorrow."

"Are you going to have his babies?"

Tonks' mouth opened in a hot retort, but no words came out. Not because she was too shocked too answer. Because she didn't bloody _have_ one.

_Isn't that the sort of question you're supposed to be able to answer when you're getting married?_

_It all happened so fast,_ she argued with herself. _There hasn't been time to talk about babies...You've only just begun to work things out between you...You need this -- marriage. He said you did._

"We're in the middle of a war," said Tonks. "It's hardly the time to pop out babies, is it?"

Des, apparently, didn't find that a satisfactory answer.

"We might have kids, yeah."

"Will they be...werepups?"

Again Tonks' hesitated, and rested one hand on the counter as she felt more off-balance than she had in a long time. Much like in her first Transfiguration class, in fact, when she'd discovered not all shapes were as easy to shift as her face.

Since she'd learnt Remus was a werewolf, she'd devoured every book on lycanthropy she could get her hands on. Not till now had it dawned on her that not one of them had mentioned werewolf offspring.

_That has to be a good thing, though, hasn't it?_

"I think werewolves are made, not born," Tonks said.

"You _think_? You don't _know_?"

_You really ought to know, Tonks, and you know it. Good luck figuring out how to ask Remus without him flaking out._

Not, Tonks thought, squaring her shoulders in defiance of her self-doubt, that it was anything to be worried about for a very long time. And even if it _were_ the case...Well so. bloody. what? She didn't love Remus any less for what he was. She certainly wouldn't love a baby less.

_If_ they had one, that was.

Which they very well might not.

Beyond a few adolescent talks with Des about what sort of lives they would live after Hogwarts, babies had never seriously been the subject of Tonks daydreams. If she was the sort of witch to have them, wouldn't she have done? Years ago? And named them, as well?

She wondered if it wasn't because there were so few women in her line of work, and even fewer who were married. Alice Longbottom was the only one in donkey's years who'd had a husband -- much less a baby.

Since joining the Auror programme, Tonks had always known that, like Alice, she wouldn't be able to put her work aside for a family -- and that was before she'd had an inkling of Voldemort returning and being thrown into a war. Now, more than ever, the job was too important. Certainly not more important than a child -- but wasn't it the ultimate expression of a child's importance to a mother that she do everything in her power to ensure he had a safe world to live in? Surely that was why Frank and Alice had continued to serve the Auror department, as well as the Order of the Phoenix, after their son was born?

As much as she understood that line of thinking, would make the same choice herself if put to it, Tonks wasn't keen to put herself in that position.

_Not with the likes of dear Auntie Bella at large and Crucioing everything that breathes._

And she knew without talking to Remus that he would agree.

"I reckon," Tonks said, "I'll find out if it happens."

"What if it kills you to find out? I mean literally, werewolf transformation in the womb--"

"Des!"

"What if _he_ kills you?" Des flung her arms wide, and her focused voice echoed through the high-ceilinged flat as it rose in pitch. "I mean I'm sure you're very careful and all, but all those full moons...It just seems like pushing your luck a bit. A lot. Doesn't it scare you? It scares me for you."

Her voice had tapered off, and with a shudder, Des wrapped her arms around herself, and ducked her head.

For a moment, Tonks didn't know what to do, or what to say. Part of her felt it couldn't be _her_ that Des was talking about, as if she were a character from some scary story warning little girls away from the Big Bad Wolf. Another part of her felt like she ought to be angry that people could talk about her like that, imagine such horrible things about her and the man she was going to marry -- but she wasn't angry. Because Des didn't know. Just as Tonks herself had just admitted that _she_ didn't know.

And just as she'd learnt last year, and the year before that, and all the years she'd been with Remus now, frustrated by the way he shut her out from so many parts of his life:

You couldn't fault a person for caring about you that much.

She stepped toward Des and touched her arm.

"Don't be. I'm not."

Des' eyes flicked up to meet hers. "I dunno if that makes you incredibly brave or really effing stupid."

Tonks smiled. "Why does everyone think Gryffindors have the monopoly on courage?"

Des laughed a little, and relaxed slightly, leaning back against the cupboards.

"It's not just the werewolf killing stuff," she said, heaving a sigh. "Remus put you through a hell of a lot last year. It wasn't good for you. Your morphing--"

"Good as new." Tonks scrunched up her face and changed her nose to a pig snout.

"I'll never forget when you did that during the school song our first year," said Des, through another bout of laughter.

"You've never let me forget it, either," said Tonks, moving to stand beside her. "Or that it was probably the chief reason for my nonexistent love-life."

Des gave an uncharacteristically quiet chuckle.

"That's how I knew Remus was the one, you know. He doesn't bat an eye when I do weird stuff like that."

"Oh Gawd!" Des pulled a face and sidled away from Tonks. "Do me a favour and spare me the nitty gritty of your freaky Metamorphmagus-werewolf sex life, okay?"

Tonks picked up a cold remnant of beans-on-toast and threw it at Des. "You'd be disappointed, wouldn't you, if I told you we're a boring missionary couple?"

"I don't even want to know about your _non_-freaky Metamorphmagus-werewolf sex life."

Wrinkling her nose, Des flicked the soggy mess off her shoulder, at Tonks, but it fell short.

"I'm not invited to the wedding, am I?"

Unexpectedly, Tonks' eyes welled. Silvery blurred images swam in her memory, as if she were looking into a Pensieve: of her and Des lying on Tonks' bed in their dormitory, staring up at the heavy brocade curtains, dreaming up their Wizards Charming and planning their lavish weddings; of poring over _Witch Weekly - Bridal Edition_ when Des' older sister was engaged; of actually going to Madam Malkin's one day, morphed and Polyjuiced, to try on wedding gowns.

_You promised each other you'd be each other's bridesmaids. You promised each other your husbands would be best mates, as well, and your lives would be non-stop married couple fun together. You promised each other -- well, her more than you -- that when you got tired of that you'd think about maybe having kids, but of course you'd have them at the same time so they could go to Hogwarts together..._

Now Tonks' best mate was afraid of the man she was going to marry...Des wouldn't even be able to attend the wedding, much less be a bridesmaid...And if, by some trick of fate, Tonks and Remus _did_ have kids, who knew if Hogwarts would be in the picture?

_Is this really what you want Tonks? A future that's not at all like you imagined and, apart from Remus, remains such a mystery? You don't even know the when or the where or the how of the wedding..._

But she did know the _who_.

In all those girlish dreams with Des, there had never been a face to her Wizard Charming. No boy at school, no rock star, definitely no one from the Auror squad. Now, she realised, there was no church, no Ministry office, no gown, no cake, no guests, nothing at all except...

She saw a wood, with many paths winding through the close-growing trees -- one leading to the Ministry of Magic, another to her parents' house, a third to this flat with Des, still another to Grimmauld Place, and more yet leading Merlin knew where -- till they joined into one road, at the end of which stood Remus.

_Absolutely, he is what you want._

"It's got to be very quiet," said Tonks.

Des nodded, sniffling, and Tonks was, too, as they hugged.

"I wish you could be my bridesmaid," Tonks said. "You can come see us any time in Brockenhurst. There's some great pubs."

Abruptly, Des pulled back from Tonks, and wiped her watery eyes on the back of her hand.

"Yeah. Well, you know I'm always on the road with the team. Travel's a right bitch these days, with Flooing out for non-Ministry officials -- which is why I'm pissed off at you for your damn principles, you know -- and Portkeys so heavily regulated, and you know athletes aren't big on Apparating internationally, in case of splinching."

_She's babbling,_ Tonks thought as Des went on. _Des babbles when she's feeling awkward._

Tonks hadn't even realised she'd begun to hope maybe her best mate would support her despite not really getting it, till her heart gave a twinge of disappointment. Des wouldn't have stood up with her at this wedding....She wasn't going to come see her at her husband's home...

On second thought, it wasn't a _twinge_ of disappointment so much as a great sharp _pang_ in her heart.

"Right," said Des, crisply. "D'you need help packing?"

_This is goodbye._

But Tonks was willing to say it.

Disappointment did not outweigh her certainty of what lay ahead for her, nor did it sap the joy that had, and would be, bought with such pain. This was her path: the Order, Remus. She would walk it, and not look back.

"Ta," she said, "but I can get it on my own."

She was ready to get on with her new life as Mrs. Remus Lupin.

_To be continued..._


	2. Hearth and Home

**2. Hearth and Home**

The anti-Apparition spells around Remus' property required Tonks to Apparate to the village a mile away. Materialising in a shadowy car park behind The Snakecatcher public house, she took out her broomstick and mounted up to fly the rest of the way through the forest to the cottage.

_Not_ the _cabin for very much longer, Tonks_, she thought as she weaved a low path in and out of the trees alongside the path beaten by human feet, cattle, and Muggle cars. _His and yours. The Lupin Estate, as he said the first Christmas he brought you. The home of Mr. and Mrs. Remus Lupin. And you're to be the Mrs! Soon!_

_Not soon enough._

Tonks leant further over her broom, picking up speed. The trees streaked past in her peripheral, their weathered trunks silver in the moonlight, casting long shadows over her and looming over the path. When they grew fewer and father between, she descended slowly until she touched down in a clearing where the track narrowed into a mere sliver of a footpath that stopped at a ramshackle picket fence demarking the tiny plot of forest land that belonged to Remus.

_And soon to you!_

The windows of the grey brick cottage, lit with warm, flickering lamplight, beckoned her to come in. Tonks was eager to see the man who would soon be her husband, who was giving her this, but she found herself dawdling as she opened the gate, drinking in the heady fragrance of wisteria growing over the arch. With the warm July breeze wrapping around her, the scent worked on her almost like a drug or...

_Amortentia._

She'd always smelt wisteria wafting on the summer breeze whenever she'd been around the potion, but had never known why. Nor had she ever visited Remus' home in summer, when it was in bloom, to make the connection.

Then, as if she'd actually drunk the love potion, she snapped out of her daze and bolted through the gate, in too big a rush to be sure it latched properly behind her, tripping over the haphazard path of stepping stones half-buried in long, patchy grass and last autumn's un-raked fallen leaves.

A moment of silence followed Tonks' rap on the door of the cottage. Thinking Remus must not have heard, engaged in some other part of the house -- _you ought to see about installing a doorbell_ -- she raised her fist to knock again. She didn't, however, as at that very moment, a thumping from within, overhead, signified Remus descending the rickety staircase directly on the other side of the wall from where she was stood on the stoop. Tonks glanced up at the little fanlight window above the door just in time to see him at the turn in the staircase, glancing over his shoulder out the window and grinning down at her with a quick wave. He'd rounded the corner before she could wave back, and then his muffled voice sounded just on the other side of the door.

"Who's there?"

Tonks rolled her eyes and started to say, _Open the door, you paranoid great prat, you've just seen me_, but remembered how she'd just lectured Des for not going through the security procedures.

_Practice what you preach, Auror!_

Gritting her teeth, she said, "It's me, Tonks, and I won't say my Christian name, given to me by my fool of a mother Andromeda Black Tonks, even for security purposes. I turn my hair pink to signify I've had great sex, my Patronus used to be a pig called Wilbur that I loved to make grunt and snort, but last autumn it changed to the werewolf form of Remus Lupin, who proposed to me last night in bed, and who calls me--"

The door swung inward and revealed a smirking Remus leaning against the jamb. "Hello, Elphine. You could've stopped at _it's me_, you know. I know my fiancée by her grammar."

Tonks wanted to roll her eyes again, but found it impossible with every facial muscle was busy pulling an ear-to-ear grin because Remus had called her his fiancée.

Still, she managed to say, "Just like I know mine cos he's a git."

"Gentleman, I think, is the G-word you're looking for."

Remus stood aside to let her pass through the door, leaning in to steal a quick kiss, then pushed the door shut behind her and slipped her rucksack off her shoulders.

"Are all your things in here?" he asked.

Tonks nodded, absently, as she sniffed the air at the foot of the narrow staircase. "What's that smell? It's like--"

She looked at Remus, who wore the look of a Marauder who'd clearly been up to something; for the first time, she noticed he was dishevelled and unshaven, bare-foot, wearing a burgundy t-shirt that read _Professors do it by the book_ (a birthday present from Des, when he was still teaching and to her just the older man in Tonks' life rather than the werewolf ruining it), and a pair of frayed, grungy jeans speckled with pale green--

"Have you been _painting_?" Tonks asked.

Grin widening, Remus set her bag on the floor, grabbed her hand, and pulled her after him as he mounted the stairs.

"Seriously?" she said, stumbling a little up the steps as he, with more energy and enthusiasm than she'd seen in...far too long...took them two at a time. "I thought you said you had lots of Order work today..."

Her voice trailed off as they reached the landing and found the upstairs corridor narrower than usual as it was strewn with stacks of boxes which she could only assume had come from the bedroom he'd never shown her before, the door to which stood wide open. No light shone from within, but she definitely smelled paint, along with the fainter sweet wisteria that told her the windows in the room were open, letting in the breeze.

"I did have," said Remus. "In case you haven't heard, two of our members are to be married and are in the market for a safe house -- which includes up-to-date security wards and fresh paint jobs."

"Paint jobs? What, is there some sort of Dark Creature I never learned about in DADA that lives in old paint?"

"Very clever, Miss Tonks! Ten points to Hufflepuff. There is, indeed, a variety of Doxy called the Pixienti Pixie--"

"Pixies that eat paint for breakfast?" Tonks cringed. "I expected a hell of a lot more creative use of Latin vocabulary from you."

"--whose appearance is almost indistinguishable from the paint flakes upon which its diet is solely based."

"Sounds like something you read in one of Gilderoy Lockhart's books."

"Madam," said Remus, dropping her hand and pressing his fist over his chest, but not managing to squelch his chuckle, "you wound me."

"I can't say I'm sorry," Tonks told him, because even in jest it seemed completely wrong to apologise to a laughing man who hadn't done in so long.

Aside from the fact that she thought Remus was dead sexy like this, at home and comfortably unkempt in his own space _(and yours, too!)_, he looked so _happy_. There was a hint of fatigue on his features, as there always seemed to be, but it was nothing at all like the utter world-weariness that had etched itself so deeply, and so seemingly irrevocably, over the course of the past few years -- especially the most recent months of his mission. Now he simply looked like any other man who'd been hard at work from early in the morning to late at night preparing a home for his bride-to-be. _(That's you!)_ His smile was satisfied, and reached his eyes, which crinkled at the corners in the way that gave his rather ordinary face such character.

Looking at him, Tonks realised all over again that if there was one thing she wanted out of life, it was to know this man inside and out. Her heart swelled with gratitude to whatever powers that were that her dogged persistence had paid off, and she'd got another chance with him. A permanent chance. A lifetime to spend with him, exploring him, seeing to it that she kept him smiling like that.

Her face mirroring his expression, Tonks said, "I did hear a rumour that a couple of Order members were tying the knot. Show me the love nest?"

Remus pulled his wand from the back pocket of his jeans and, rather incongruously with his relaxed appearance, gave it a precise flick at the doorway that made yellow light spill out the room into the unlit corridor. When Tonks lingered a moment, mesmerised by the highlighted golden strands of his hair, he laid a hand on her shoulder, turned her, and gave her a gentle nudge toward the room.

The master bedroom wasn't much larger than the one they usually slept in, Remus' childhood bedroom -- the only other bedroom in the house -- but the ceiling was a bit higher, with dormer windows, and so felt more expansive. Yet there was a cosy quality, as well.

In one corner stood a fireplace, where a small blaze of magical fire -- ambient fire, producing no heat -- crackled in the grate. Remus had painted the plastered walls a tranquil pale green that made Tonks feel rather like she was nestled in one of the treetops surrounding the house, in spring when the leaves were new; here and there hung oil landscape paintings of New Forest scenes. The floors, which only this morning must have been layered with year's worth of dust, were waxed to a high shine, dotted with woven rugs. White muslin curtains hung in all the windows, fluttering in the breeze, almost as if they were waving their welcome to Tonks.

As in the living room directly below, the bedroom furniture was old and a hodgepodge of mismatched pieces; but Tonks liked eclectic, and thought everything fit here, fit _them_, from the cherry wardrobe that couldn't possibly have fit up the stairs except by magic; to the white-painted wrought-iron bedstead with a double wedding-ring quilt in shades of peach and green covering a rather lumpy, voluminous feather mattress (on which her Kneazle, Cato, was curled up napping -- or had been, though he was now glaring at her through yellow slits of eyes for disturbing his slumber); to the pair of Louis XV reproduction bedside tables that had drawers for night-time reading material and just enough room on top for a candlestick and a cup of cocoa; to the chunky, rustic bureau that might be pine, but was hidden beneath so many layers of paint you really couldn't know for certain, the latest colour being a muted black with faded fleur-de-lis stencilled in gold on the drawers; to bookshelves of varying heights and wood grains, some crammed with books, though a few vacant shelves indicated Remus had condensed them today in order to make room for her own.

"Do you think this will do for the happy couple?" Remus' voice slipped quietly into her thoughts.

Her cheeks aching with her smile, Tonks whirled to face him, wobbling a little as her cloak tangled around her legs, and flung her arms around his neck.

"It'll more than do," she said. "We'll be a very happy couple here."

His eyes were so light as he smiled down at her that they appeared almost translucent. "I must confess that I am very relieved you didn't walk in and become sick at the sight of the green."

Laughing, Tonks hugged him tighter and stretched up on her toes to kiss his chin. "It's a lovely shade. Very tranquil."

"Mm. That's what I had in mind."

He touched his lips softly to hers, then disengaged himself from her and moved to straighten a picture that hung a bit cockeyed on the wall.

"Merlin knows we need a bit of tranquillity in our lives when we can get it. Though I did wonder if I shouldn't go with bubblegum pink, to inspire lots of great sex."

"I don't think we really need our walls to inspire us, do we?"

"Precisely why I settled on green in the end."

They laughed, then Tonks asked, "You didn't tell me you were going to do this."

"Spontaneous marriage proposals breed spontaneous redecorating."

Remus looked over his shoulder at her as he grinned mischievously, but as he cast another look all around the room, Tonks saw his brow furrow. He was inspecting, critiquing -- she knew from the tell-tale gestures of his fingers tugging at the hair at the base of his neck and him chewing his bottom lip.

Abruptly, he turned to her. "You don't mind, do you? I suppose I _should_ have consulted you first -- it's to be your home, as well."

"Of course I don't mind -- as long as _you_ don't mind _me_ adding a few personal touches. _Accio_ Rucksack!"

After a moment of hearing her bag clunking up the stairs, it hovered through the door, looking as if it were being carried by an invisible person with very poor upper body strength, then dropped onto her toes. Thankfully, she still wore her heavy work boots.

Relief wiped away the lines of concern from Remus' face, but one sandy eyebrow rose. "You may do whatever strikes your fancy in here, though I do have one request."

Tonks mirrored his expression. "Which is?"

"That you not hang your Myron Wagtail poster over our bed."

"Deal." Tonks opened her rucksack, rifled through it, and unfurled a poster. "You don't mind about Gideon Crumb, then?"

"Certainly not. I can't think of anything more romantic than being serenaded by an extremely hairy bagpiper as I make love to you."

Tonks glanced at the blank wall over the curlicue iron headboard. "Wouldn't that make Gideon more of a bag_peeper_?"

Though a snort of laughter undermined him, Remus made a valiant effort at looking appalled as he snatched the poster from her hands.

"Oi!" Tonks tried to grab it back from him, but Remus turned his body, effectively blocking her.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking smugly over his shoulder, "but I'm going to have to renege that offer to let you add a few personal touches. In fact, I think your Weird Sisters paraphernalia ought to be disposed of entirely, lest any children we might one day have be corrupted by punk rock music as you clearly have been."

Tonks dropped her rucksack and balled her hands into fists, pummelling him playfully on the back as, laughing, she shot back a smart-arse retort. She felt, though, as if she were observing herself in a dream, her brain disengaged from her actions and words as it remained fixated on Remus': _any children we might one day have._

_He's never talked to you before about having kids._

Oh, she knew he was joking, and that joking wasn't the same as really _talking_. Hell, it didn't even mean it was necessarily something he'd _thought_ about.

In light of Des' earlier questions, though, Tonks couldn't stop herself getting hung up on the fact that this was new for him, for _them_. Remus must be embracing this marriage thing whole hippogriff if he was making that sort of joke -- hadn't he?

_And there's your segue to ask about kids before you go through with this wedding._

She mentally snorted derisively at herself.

_Right, and just what are you planning to say? "I reckon since you mentioned them, our theoretical children won't have any furry little problems beyond theoretical pet rabbits that may not have any more penchant for good behaviour than me?"_

"Something wrong?" Remus asked.

Tonks realised that at some point during her reverie, his laughter had died, and he'd relieved himself of the poster and turned around to face her, his fingers laced together at the small of her back. His face, a moment ago young-looking in his animation, had creased once again with those concerned lines that always drew attention to the grey hair at his temples.

_Damn you, Tonks! Didn't you_ just _swear to keep him smiling?_

"Nothing," she said, shaking herself and forcing her voice to sound unconcerned, feeling like a great hypocrite for hiding her feelings when she'd been after him for so bloody long to open up to her, and he was only just coming around. "Just something Des said."

Lips pressing together in a thin line, Remus' hands slid from around her waist as he stepped back and sat on a bench with a faded emerald green velvet cushion at the foot of the bed.

"What reason did you give her for moving out?" he asked.

Tonks felt a little short of breath as her pulse sped up. She was supposed to have kept their engagement a secret from everyone but their closest friends in the Order, and her family. It wasn't that she disagreed; she knew they would launch themselves to the top of the Death Eaters' -- namely, Bellatrix Lestrange's -- hit list if word got out that a werewolf had been added to the Black family tree, even if only the burned-off branch. The fewer people that knew their exact relationship, the safer they would remain. Merlin knew they needed every bit of security they could get these days. But Des _was_ one of Tonks' closest friends. Would Remus be angry that she'd told?

"Too dangerous," she blurted.

He gawped up at her.

"Really," Tonks said. "It just popped out. And Des asked if you'd rubbed off on me."

Remus' lips twitched.

"Oh, God," Tonks muttered, rolling her eyes. She Summoned a throw pillow from the bed and bashed him about the head with it. "What are you, twelve?"

His hoarse laugh rang out as he ducked his head and raised a hand, half-heartedly fending off her blows.

"This is your flatmate _Des_ we're talking about. Des, who gave me this very rude t-shirt and who is, without a doubt, the female version of Sirius Black."

"They'd have made a great couple."

"If by 'great' you mean 'patently offensive'."

"Course I do!"

"And you can't fault my brain for going there, Elphine." Remus caught the pillow and held it still. "I did, after all, share a dormitory with Sirius for seven years, and another year at Grimmauld, and you couldn't spend that much time in such close quarters without Sirius rub--"

He stopped himself as Tonks raised her eyebrow.

"--_affecting_ you," he amended.

It was probably cruel, given the way Remus' ordinarily poised, composed face had gone all pink, but Tonks couldn't resist goading him. "_In_fected, more like."

The flush faded as Remus rolled his eyes. "Rather a case of the pot calling the cauldron black, isn't it, when you're clearly equally _infected_ by your even longer term housemate?"

"Or is it the punk rock music?"

"I think I'd be more keen on exposing the children to the Weird Sisters than to Des."

"I'll strike through her name on the list of potential babysitters, then, and add Gideon and Myron."

It was a miracle she'd been able to think of a jokey reply, as her brain was going haywire.

_That's twice now, Tonks. There's a door standing wide open for you to talk about kids. Des is right -- it is the sort of thing you ought to talk about before you get married. Remus has got to be cool with it, or he wouldn't keep bringing it up._

_Also, he said_ the _children. Not 'any children we might someday have', as he said before. The children. The ones you're going to have together. As if it's a given._

_Don't read too much into this for once, she countered her own argument. It's the mistake you always make, and you'd do well to avoid it for once. Especially as it concerns kids you yourself haven't planned, at least not at this point in your life._

_Remember how you mucked things up by asking asked Remus if he ever thought about getting married?_

Her face burned, and her stomach knotted. How could she forget?

_Yeah, that's right. He nearly broke it off with you, and even though you convinced him not to leave, things were weird for--_

"Scoot over a bit, will you?" she interrupted her own thoughts, nudging Remus lightly on the shoulder.

"What is it?"

His blue eyes studied her intently, crinkled at the corners. Once upon a time, Tonks would have thought he was using Legilimency on her. She smiled a little at her own naiveté; now, of course, she knew that while Remus _was_ an accomplished Legilimens, he also had a knack for reading people that had nothing to do with magic. He simply was an excellent judge of character -- and he knew her inside and out.

_Which is why you shouldn't be afraid to tell him the truth. If he knows you, he knows your motives. He trusts your judgment, as well._

_You think._

Tonks drew a deep breath and told him how Des had sussed them, but his shoulder tensing against hers, his taut cheek muscle and firm jaw, did nothing to ease her fears that her choice would become a subject of contention between them.

When she finished, however, Remus only said, "Do you need to Obliviate her?"

_God, no_, was Tonks' instinctive reply, but she bit it back, forced herself to shake her head slowly -- a tactic she'd picked up from Remus. "Des is the most loyal person I know. Except for you," she added.

Considering how he was now employing that same tactic of deliberation, rubbing his fingers over his stubbled cheek and chin, Tonks wasn't be sure whether she'd really reassured him of Des' reliability -- or that he really believed she thought him loyal. However, when she felt him relax beside her, and he took her hand, lightly scuffing her knuckles with his thumb, she had her proof; his touch never lied.

"How did she take the news?" Remus asked quietly.

Tonks swallowed hard. "She thinks I'm mad." Squeezing his hand, she added, quickly. "Which shows how much she cares about me. She won't tell anyone."

Darting her eyes at him, she saw he didn't look like he'd heard the last. He wore a small, ironic smile.

"You see?" he said. "I'm not the only one who thinks--"

"Don't!" Tonks cried. "You said you wouldn't talk like that--!"

Remus reached across their bodies to touch his fingertips to her lips. "I know, I'm sorry. It was a joke. A poor one."

Tonks realised she'd clutched his hand so tightly that her fingernails were digging into the valleys between his knuckles.

"I'm sorry," she said, and released him.

But he kept a hold, closing his long fingers around her hand.

"It's all right," he said. "I've established quite a track record for myself of saying that sort of thing and meaning it."

Tonks couldn't disagree, but she laid her head on his shoulder, hoping it would convey her affection above all. "You used to joke like that, though, all the time. I forgot..."

His chin prickled against her forehead as he turned his head to kiss her hair. "So did I. Because I didn't have you to remind me."

Tonks lifted her head and saw his eyes, soft and shining with love as he looked at her. He raised his free hand to caress her cheek. She laid hers over it, pressing the warmth of his palm close against her skin. She leaned in to him.

"You have me now."

His lips were almost upon hers. She felt the brush of them as he whispered, "And so I've remembered."

He kissed her, but strangely, what Tonks was more aware of than the soft, supple glide of his lips was the way his fingers were sliding up from her hand to circle her wrist...skimming over the sensitive skin at her pulse...tickling as they toyed with the delicate silver links of her rune bracelet...charming the fine blonde hairs arm to stand as gooseflesh blossomed over the pale white rise of her arm...

_Charming._

Tonks felt the transfer of magic from his fingers as a tingle in her blood and a pleasant warmth on her skin where before had been cool metal. Pulling her lips from his, her eyes snapped open and down to her bracelet.

Her breath hitched.

Amid the other runes he had given her ever since he first started the bracelet for her the day she completed her Auror training, Remus had magicked a new one, inset with a tiny ruby, onto it:

_Othila._

Rune of home, hearth, and family.

"I haven't had my wits about me since...Dumbledore..." said Remus hoarsely, fingering the rune. "If I had, I would have actually planned my proposal, and given you that."

"I liked you being spontaneous."

He tugged at a strand of her hair. "Somehow I'm not surprised."

Tonks returned his smile, wishing she could put into words just how much it had meant to her that he'd popped the question the way he had. For a man who could be so taciturn, who had spent so much of his life in hiding and, consequently, had become extremely good at it, the impulsiveness of his proposal struck her as more honest than a carefully rehearsed and executed one. Spontaneity meant that marriage was as close to Remus' heart as it was to hers. He wanted it for himself as much as for her.

"Remember when I first asked you about getting married?" she asked, impulsively. "Christmas, year before last?

Remus' face went a little pale, and she blushed furiously for having brought embarrassment into this moment.

She forged ahead. "I...I'd imagined your proposal in my head. You gave me this rune instead of a ring."

With a very small smile, Remus turned slightly away from her.

_Wonderful_, she thought as her face burned hotter, red creeping down her neck. _Now you've made him conscious about the money thing._

"I've got a ring for you, too," his voice rasped gently over her internal critic, and Tonks realised that the small smile was his slightly smug Marauder grin. "Two for you, actually...and one for me." Aiming his wand at the chest of drawers, he gave it a neat little flick. "_Accio_ box."

A simple, carved oak box glided from the bureau into his lap. Tonks watched, feeling rather like it was Christmas, as his graceful hands flipped the hinged lid open and drew out a very simple diamond engagement ring.

"It was my mother's," he said, catching her hand in both of his, holding the ring delicately between his fingers. "She would have loved you -- in fact I am without a doubt that wherever she is, she does love you -- and it would have made her very happy to see you wear this. May I?"

Tonks, her throat constricted, could do nothing but nod. His smile was brilliant as he slid the ring (shimmering in the candlelight, as well as through her tears) onto the fourth finger of her trembling left hand. As he adjusted it magically to fit her (his mother's fingers, apparently, had been slimmer than Tonks'), she marvelled that his own hands could be so steady.

_It's a sign. This is the path you're meant to take together._

"I just put an engagement ring on your finger," said Remus, gazing wonderingly at her hand. He looked up at her with the same expression. "You're going to be my..._wife_."

_Merlin, it's real. He's said it. You're going to be Remus' wife!_

"And you're going to be my husband!"

He brought her hand to his lips, and kissed her finger just below where the ring was nestled.

"I want to put a ring on your finger, as well," said Tonks, looking into the box balanced on his leg.

"You will."

Tonks took out two gold wedding bands. At first they appeared to be very plain, but as she turned them over and the gleaming gold caught the light, she saw that the inside edges were engraved. The thicker man's ring was etched with _Sylvia_, and the woman's, _John_.

Remus let go of her hand and reached back to tug at the back of his hair. "You don't mind that they're not..."

"New?" Tonks cut him off. "No, I think it's really special to wear your parents' rings. Lucky, even. I'm honoured."

She checked to see what effect her words had had, and found him relaxed again, hands in his lap, and smiling.

"We should do that," she said. "Have each other's names engraved inside."

"Hm." Remus rubbed his chin as he took what would be her wedding band from her and held it up to the light, scrutinising it. "Only I don't think Nymphadora would fit."

Tonks snorted. "Why would it need to?"

"Because it's your name."

"My name's Tonks!"

"It won't be when we're married!"

Of course Tonks wanted to argue the point, but found she could not, because the excitement shivering delightfully down her spine made her disinclined to argue, even playfully. There were so many more important things to talk about. Such as:

"When do I get to be Mrs. Lupin?"

His grin stretched, lopsided and boyish. "The sooner the better."

"When we go over to my parents' tomorrow night we can ask Dad if he knows anything about Muggle marriage licenses."

Face falling abruptly into a frown of determination, Remus said, "I don't want to have a Muggle wedding. I'm going to marry you, and I'm going to do it properly. We shall be bonded. Magically."

He was so emphatic, and it meant the world to Tonks, who felt a bit like they'd switched personalities.

"You know that's what I want," she said, hating to say it, and reaching for his hand, "but the Ministry--"

"Not the Ministry." Remus shook his head definitively as he stood. "Magic isn't might, no matter what that lot are saying."

For a moment, Tonks studied him as he faced her. His hands were clasped behind his back, and despite his grungy outfit and scruffy and untidy hair, he looked every inch the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor she'd met four years ago.

_And don't overlook that gleam in his eye -- you're looking at the inventor of the Marauder's Map._

Tonks raised an eyebrow. "Obviously you've found some loophole."

Remus grinned. "How do you feel about Centaurs?"

_To be continued..._


	3. Leave Thy Father and Thy Mother

**3. Leave Thy Father and Thy Mother**

"All done, then?" asked Tonks' dad, who'd been watching out the sitting room window as she and Remus cast security wards over her parents' house, and met them at the door.

"All done," Tonks replied. "No one but the Order of the Phoenix--" She tripped over the threshold as she tried to walk and wipe her muddy shoes on the welcome mat at the same time.

"Or people you and Tonks' mother personally escort..." Remus added, catching her elbow to keep her from falling into the delicate foyer table and knocking over the aspidistra. Which she'd done Merlin knew how many times in her life, maiming it beyond recognition more than once; it really was nothing short of miraculous that she hadn't killed it, and that her mum's skills at Herbology surpassed the destructive force of Tonks' two left feet and faulty equilibrium.

"--can get within a hundred yards of the house in any direction," Tonks finished, looking over her shoulder to smile her thanks at Remus; her grin widened at the affection shining in his eyes as he looked down at her with a wink.

_Just like when you first met. _

For the first time, she was a little bit thankful for her clumsy streak, as it somehow did as much as anything in the past few weeks to reassure her that she and Remus really could get back what the past year had worked so hard to steal from them. Which was a good thing to be reassured of, really, considering that they were here not just to make her parents' house a safe one, but to invite them to a wedding on very short notice.

"Jolly good," said Ted, shutting the door behind them. But when he turned, he wore a frown and scratched his head as he _hmmed_.

"What?" Tonks asked.

"Well...Only Father Christmas'll have a _hell_ of a time getting to the chimney."

Tonks snorted and rolled her eyes at her dad, who was laughing heartily at his own joke. She felt rather than heard Remus' quiet chuckle as he stood very close behind her, one arm around her waist, his hand resting lightly on her middle.

"I don't think you'll have to worry about Father Christmas, Ted," said Andromeda, appearing in the kitchen doorway. As she took off her starched, spotless apron and hung it on a hook on the other side of the wall, she said, "He's probably just put you on his naughtylist for swearing."

Ted's chortle rang out louder, his big belly jiggling, while Andromeda smirked and rolled her eyes.

"Sometimes I swear I was adopted," Tonks muttered.

"On the contrary." Remus dipped his head to speak in her ear, his breath tickling her neck. "I was just thinking how suddenly you make perfect sense."

Though Tonks felt distinctly mushy inside that Remus, who had guarded the secrecy of their relationship so jealously, and for so long, was being this openly affectionate in front of her parents, she muttered, "Git," and reached behind to tweak his side; he squirmed, and she sniggered.

Andromeda's crisp tones carried over Ted's noisy laughter, and her grey eyes locking on Tonks silenced her. "Thank you, Nymphadora, Remus. I already feel a great deal more secure."

Shuffling awkwardly around Remus and Tonks, Ted stood beside his wife and draped a beefy arm around her proudly erect shoulders.

"See, 'Dromeda?" He squeezed her, and stooped to drop a kiss on her soft brown hair. "I told you one day we'd be glad to have an Auror in the family."

"I never said we wouldn't. And don't call me 'Dromeda."

"Yes, dear," said Ted, but he chuckled, earning himself another eye-roll.

Against her back, Tonks felt Remus' body quiver with another barely held-back laugh. She started to give him another pinch, but her mum's eyes, flicking briefly downward to Tonks' hand, arrested her.

But then Andromeda smiled her warm, gracious smile at them. "Do sit down, please."

With a light touch on their backs, she ushered them to the cluster of chairs and sofa, grouped for conversation around a coffee table which was polished to a high gloss.

"Would either of you care for tea? Pumpkin juice? It was awfully warm out."

_In two bloody days, Tonks, you're going to be the lady of the house. Reckon you can come remotely close to achieving your mum's level of hospitality?_

Thinking she'd settle for not tripping over the side tables, Tonks half-fell onto the sofa and blushed under her mother's gaze that clearly said she thought that the heavy, un-ladylike boots were as much the problem as balance issues.

But as Remus seated himself next to Tonks, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to pull her close against his side, where they fit so perfectly together, she relaxed. Remus was much easier to please than her mother -- and, honestly, the only person she cared to please. He wouldn't expect great householdy feats from her. Nor, she thought as she looked around her parents' living room and pictured the comfortably cluttered, mismatched sitting room of the New Forest cottage (_our house_, she thought, her heart beating quicker), would their guests expect anything other than Remus' casual, effortless manners that made anybody feel welcome and at ease and free to be themselves. She imagined having Kingsley over, for an evening, or the Weasleys; maybe the Order would have a Christmas party at the Lupins'. Merlin, she couldn't _wait_!

"I'm fine, Mum" she said, "though if you've got any champagne, I reckon that'd be appropriate."

"Champagne?" Ted was settling himself into his favourite leather armchair by the fireplace (which he and Andromeda had battled over for years) and looked at Tonks exactly as he had the time she'd asked for the Bertie's Bonanza ice cream at Fortescue's, which claimed to contain every flavour of the Every Flavour Beans. "What do you want champagne for?"

Andromeda perched at the edge of a floral-print wing-backed chair, her posture erect as Minerva McGonagall's, and her slender ankles crossed elegantly. Eyebrows arched, she addressed Tonks with a faint smile: "I take it you've something to celebrate?"

It was that look and tone Tonks had come to know so well over the years: she wasn't fooling her mother.

_Well done, Tonks. So much for letting Remus take the lead like he asked. Why can't you ever bloody _think _before you run your stupid mouth? _

She looked up at him in apology, but he gave her a smile and a shoulder squeeze.

"I certainly am in a celebratory mood," he said.

For just a second, as Remus removed his arm from around Tonks to sit forward on the sofa, her heart gave irregular half-beats as panic gripped her. He took her hand, though, and as he laced their fingers tightly together, giving her another reassuring squeeze, her optimism returned. Her parents knew as little of Remus as Des did, but had never expressed anything at all like Des' opinions; in fact, they'd had very little to say about him at all.

_Not that you exactly went out of your way to discuss him..._

That her parents had always supported her decisions, including her Order work for which they'd offered their home as a safe house, boded well for their ability to see her as an adult and respect her choice of husband.

As for how Remus felt...He hadn't talked much about what he anticipated; but his touch conveyed that quiet confidence (whether in the Tonkses' reaction, or in his decision, she wasn't sure) that had first attracted her to him.

"Mr. and Mrs. Tonks," Remus began. "I--"

"_Mister _Tonks?" Ted interrupted loudly, looking as if Remus had spoken to him in Gobbledegook. "On second thought," he said with a snort, "maybe I _do_ need a nip of champagne. Or Firewhisky."

"What he means, Remus," Andromeda's gentle tones broke in, "is that there's no need to be formal."

"What I mean," said Ted, "is that you and I may not've been at school together, mate, but I don't think the generation gap's _quite _worthy of _Mister_, do you?"

_Oh. dear. Merlin. _

Tonks' heart hung still and heavy in her chest.

_Your dad did _not _just make a stupid, sarky comment that'll sure as hell get "too old" rattling around in that noble and most thick skull of Remus' after you've worked so hard to beat it out of him. The universe could not possibly be that cruel to you, could it?_

Remus' palm and fingers felt clammy and limp against her own.

Yes. The universe _could_ be that cruel.

_Or was that _her _sweating? _

A glance down at her turquoise skirt, which she'd apparently been twisting in her free, fisted hand into a damp, wrinkled ball, revealed that she was.

She glanced hopefully up at Remus.

His head was ducked slightly, fringe falling over his brow, and pink tinged his cheeks. Thank Merlin! Remus only blushed when he was mildly embarrassed. Sheepish. By some miracle, her dad hadn't humiliated him. Maybe Fate would be kind to her, after all; maybe it had decided that she, and Remus, too, had been refined enough by fire, and deserved a bit of chance to revel in the golden future presented by their decision to marry. Remus seemed to be doing so, at any rate: his lips curved in a boyish half-grin, and at once she noticed his shoulders trembling faintly with his softly rasping chuckle.

Tonks' fingers gripped Remus' hand firmly, and she reached her other hand around to hold his forearm. Bared to the elbow by his rolled-up shirtsleeve, his soft skin radiated the same warmth that seemed to shine from his eyes as he glanced briefly down at her before turning his twinkling gaze on her dad.

"No, Ted, I suppose not. Only I wasn't using Mr. and Mrs. so much to venerate you as to tell you, in the most respectful way I could, that I have asked your daughter to marry me."

Tonks had lain awake half the night imagining how Remus might announce their engagement to her parents. She'd come up with nothing but the conclusion that Remus was the most unpredictable man ever to live so couldn't even _begin _to guess. So, at the most basic of levels, she felt her tense shoulders relax out of sheer relief at fulfilled curiosity.

Her primary reaction, however, was her face splitting in an ear-to-ear grin at the sheer perfection of it. _Of course _Remus would be casual and cool and clever talking about something as life-altering and serious as marriage. This was the Remus she'd met and fallen in love with. This was the Remus she'd hoped had not been lost underground with the feral werewolves.

_You were right not to give up on him. _

His spontaneous proposal two nights ago could not have brought her more reassurance of what he wanted to have with her; his announcement drove away the last of the self-doubts that clung to her heart with icy, tenacious fingers.

_You make him happy. You _are _enough for him._

Also, she knew her dad well enough, and was enough like him herself, that she recognised intentional obtuse tweaking when she saw it. Hell -- she'd played that game often enough herself with a handful of professors (and in particular, Snape) and most often in the Auror office, Dawlish Of the Perpetually Twisted Knickers. It was a game that lost its charming amusement factor when it was your father playing it with your fiancé. So Remus' cheeky response was even more perfect, in that it came with the added bonus of making Ted's multiple chins more prominent as his mouth fell open, speechless.

Only...after the humour of his stunned reaction wore off, Tonks found her dad's silence a bit unnerving. Normally Ted -- very much like her -- got over having the piss taken out of him and laughed at himself.

_Thing is, you're like him because you're his _daughter_. And he's never had the piss taken out of him about you getting _married_. You haven't got a bloody clue what's normal for your dad under these circumstances. _

Even so, why the hell wasn't he bloody _saying _anything?

For that matter, why wasn't her mum?

Andromeda, prim and proper as she was, wasn't devoid of a sense of humour. She'd never have married Ted -- or stayed married to him -- if she didn't.

In fact, Tonks realised, Andromeda's brand of humour wasn't at all unlike Remus', and more than once Tonks had seen her mum actually _smirk _when someone took the piss out of Ted. Remus' brand of perfectly blended manners and wit ought to be enough to put him in Andromeda's good books for life.

Tonks glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder to check Andromeda's reaction. She could practically feel her mother's--

_Damn it! _

Andromeda wore a faint smile, but it didn't qualify as a smirk, and probably didn't even indicate amusement, either, if her misty eyes were any indication.

One of which caught Tonks' gaze.

_Once again, foiled by stealth and tracking. _

"I said yes," Tonks blurted.

Remus squeezed her hand, and she looked up to find him smiling down at her.

"Yes. She said yes."

He raised their joined hands and covered them with his other, his fingers running over her knuckles to delicately touch the ring he'd placed on her hand last night. The same look of wonderment he'd worn then glowed in his blue eyes now; if his gaze had not darted sideways to her parents, Tonks would have forgotten there was anyone but him and her in the room.

"At risk of sounding totally clichéd," Remus said, "that one little _yes _made me the happiest wizard in the world."

Clichéd, perhaps; and maybe cheesy and even just a bit cloying; but Tonks didn't give a damn. She felt too good inside, as if her heart had been a Snidget in a cage that was now free to stretch its wings and soar to joyous heights, without a care for the world below that would try to bind them again.

"Me, too," she said, finding she wasn't _too _far removed from the earth to cringe slightly at the wispy, dreamy quality to her voice. Or to blush in realisation at Remus' chuckle. "The happiest _witch_, I mean. I swear, Remus, you've got the maturity of a--"

"I'm very happy you're the happiest witch in the world, Nymphadora,"

Andromeda interrupted, approaching them with a barely restrained smirk, "but to stay that way, you'll need to avoid name-calling until after your first anniversary."

"That's seems a sound bit of marital advice," Remus said, and Andromeda smiled at him over Tonks' shoulder as they embrace, and then released her to hug Remus, too -- albeit more gingerly.

"You'll give us your blessing, then?" Tonks asked, laughing and feeling rather dizzy with delight. "And I don't mean by finally stopping calling me Nymphadora, though that'd be good as well. We're to be bonded the day after tomorrow, and--"

"I don't know if I can do that."

It was Ted who'd interrupted, his voice pinched and strange-sounding instead of the deep, projecting tones that suited his barrel build.

Tonks turned to him and, despite how his stance -- one hand picking at the nail head trim of the chair instead of shaking the hand of his would-be son-in-law -- killed her laughter, she joked.

"You never call me Nymphadora anyway, so--"

"Has he really, Dora?" Ted spoke over her. "Has he _really_ made you the happiest witch in the world? Only up until a few weeks ago, you didn't seem very happy at all. Des Flooed us, worried sick about you -- said you couldn't even _morph_."

"_I _was worried sick!" Tonks felt rather that way again now. The sick part, at least. "Remus was away, doing really dangerous work for the Order--"

"And still managing to give you a pretty crap time of it, so I gathered from Des." Ted's eyes, normally warm and kind, were wild-looking, locked over her shoulder on Remus. "Stringing you along, usingyou when it was convenient, throwing you away when it wasn't--"

"No!" Tonks cried. "It wasn't like that! Des didn't have the full story, Dad, you don't--"

"Did you break it off with Dora?" Ted demanded, face tomato red, strong thick fingers that years ago had wielded a Beater's bat flexing open and closed.

"Yes," Remus replied, his quiet voice coming from just beside Tonks.

It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth, either. He offered no excuses, nor any explanation of what had happened between them. He simply slipped his hand into hers.

_At least he's standing with you, Tonks, and not running away or enumerating on his sins against you. That's something. _

And there was nothing, really, for Remus _to _say. It wouldn't do, and it wasn't his style, to launch into their whole history, to reveal why he'd done the things he'd done. He was far too private for that, and anyway, contrary to what Tonks had just said to her dad, Remus' simple honesty probably would go farther with Ted than any speech.

In time.

The problem was, Tonks couldn't bear for her dad to think ill of him, unnecessarily, for any space.

She pressed Remus' hand, then let go and stepped toward her father. With less authority than she would like, as the damned coffee in her path escaped her notice until she'd rammed the side of her knee against the corner; she flailed one arm wildly for a second to keep from falling over it and getting a rug burn on her face.

"Dad, you don't understand."

"What's to understand?" Ted's eyes flicked briefly to Tonks, then back to Remus. "You're my only child, and from what I've seen of this bloke, I don't much like him."

"That's the point!" Tonks said. "You haven't seen very much of Remus at all. Not enough to know him."

Ted's muscular arms folded across his broad chest. "It might've helped if you'd brought him around."

His words struck her like a Bludger to the stomach, with an almost physical force that made her fall back into Remus. She felt his hand come to rest on her shoulder, as it had so many times; but now it brought no balance, did not steady her. She was reeling inside, as if she'd stepped out of a Floo but not stopped spinning...

_You've never fought with Dad before. And Mum's on your side, congratulating you, and bloody _hugging _your fiancé. What the hell's going on? _

Tonks thought of Des, all but refusing to come and visit her in her husband's home.

_This can't be goodbye to Dad, as well..._

"I should have thought," she hissed through her teeth, which were clenched as her fists were, her entire body trembling, "that with everything you went through to marry Mum, you'd be more supportive."

Ted's red face paled, and he almost stumbled backward, his hands catching the back of the chair.

"It's not the same!"

"Why?"

_Calm down, Tonks...Don't say things you don't mean just because he's upset you..._

But he'd hurt her. He wasn't being fair.

She'dhad this conversation before, too many times, with Remus. Damned if she was going to have it with her father, and damned if she was going to have it again with Remus because Ted reinforced every insecurity Remus had battled since that bastard Snape outed him!

"Why's it different, Dad? Because Remus is a werewolf?"

"Elphine," Remus whispered as her mother said, "Nymphadora!"

Ted sank heavily into his chair, mouth agape.

Andromeda's form glided from behind Tonks to stand beside her husband. Posture erect, looking cool and composed as if she'd stepped out of the most recent issue of _Witch Weekly _in the magazine rack, she cast a reproving look at Tonks.

"Don't put words in your father's mouth."

Her aristocratic hand with its tapered, manicured fingers, which Tonks had not inherited, found Ted's hunched shoulder.

"You know I don't think like that, Dora," he said, looking up at her.

Despite his pained look of having been falsely accused, and the pang it sent through Tonks, she said, "I'm not sure I do know how you think."

"Oh you don't, do you?"

The colour flooded once more into Ted's face as he got to his feet again. Tonks noticed two dark spots on the thighs of his grey trousers, where his hands had bunched and dampened the fabric with sweat, as she had done earlier to her skirt.

"All right then," he said, "I'll tell you _exactly _what I think about you marrying a werewolf."

He was pacing, great lumbering strides like an angry bear. Tonks wanted to Disapparate, to spare Remus from hearing this, to spare herself. But she seemed to be Petrified, and anyway you _couldn't _Dissapparate out of the house, not with the new security spells in place.

"I assume since you want to marry Dora you'll have some plan for keeping her safe at full moons?"

It wasn't what at all what Tonks had expected to hear; more relief came in the sound of Remus' calm voice.

"There is an old Muggle bomb shelter on my--" He caught himself, and glanced at Tonks with a slight smile before correcting the statement to, "--on _our _property."

Tonks grinned. _He's thinking just like you are! He's excited, too! _

"It is secured with powerful enchantments cast by my father when I was a boy, which even I cannot undo when I transform within the confines of the shelter."

Her dad gave a curt nod, and turned to pace back across the room. Tonks shut her eyes against the rising image of the first time she had gone to lift the enchantments to release Remus from that place. She'd found him chained there, naked and weakened by the Oak moon that had ravaged him, body, mind, and soul...

"What about the Potion?"

Tonks' eyes snapped open to stare at her mum, whose question echoed where her own train of thought had been turning.

"Wolfsbane Potion, isn't it?" Andromeda asked.

"Yeah--" Ted wheeled around. "Tames werewolves. You take that, don't you?"

"It..." Remus' hand went slack in Tonks'.

She looked up and watched his Adam's apple bob between the tips of his open collar. In the first sign of wavering confidence he'd exhibited this evening, he went on, hoarsely.

"The potion has not been readily available to me since my resignation from Hogwarts. Few wizards are up to brewing it, and the only person of my acquaintance who could was..."

His voice faltered, then fell silent entirely, as though pinched off. He blinked his eyes rapidly. As she had wanted so desperately to do that night in the Hogwarts hospital wing, when he'd crumbled, Tonks squeezed his hand, hoping to give him strength.

She opened her mouth to complete his thought for him, but before she could get a word out, Andromeda said, "Severus Snape."

Silence hung over them, as heavy as the atmosphere created by the villain's dark, brooding, greasy presence.

Until Ted's voice, almost jolly, though not precisely, broke it. "Dora's ace at Potions. Seems like a match made in heaven."

Tonks frowned, in part because she knew Ted didn't mean that like she wished he did, recalled his earlier suggestion that Remus had -- perhaps still was -- using her.

She also considered how Wolfsbane Potion had been a point of contention between her and Remus on more than one occasion.

It wasn't quite as simple as her dad made it out to be. Technically, Wolfsbane Potion did tame the werewolf. The weeklong regimen of doses enabled Remus to keep his mind -- but it did not banish the werewolf's mind. Awareness of that evil within him, stronger at some times of year than others, like the Oak Moon near the winter solstice, which pulled more fiercely at the wolf to seek human prey, terrified Remus.

When he'd first told her this, Tonks accepted it as a valid reason for not stretching his means, or relying upon the charity of others, which she knew he hated, to attain the Potion. But over time, especially in recent months -- last March -- it had seemed to Tonks that Remus was placing himself at too great a risk, too unnecessarily, by not being in control. She wondered if his only chance of overcoming the wolf within, since there was no cure for what he was, was to look it in the eyes and assert his dominance as a human man.

She looked intently up at him, and he looked back at her. Surely, in light of their impending marriage, he must see that he could not go on as he had been? She was to be his wife. Pride, a loathing of charity, were no longer valid excuses. He would have to rely on her as she relied on him.

"It is definitely something to consider," Remus said slowly, "when Dora is no longer pulling double duty for the Auror division and the Order."

Tonks was glad he was holding tightly to her hand, as she felt sure she could have been knocked right over with a fairy cake.

_Memo to you: tell Remus he is not allowed to call you Dora like your dad, or have it engraved on his wedding band. _

"'I'll bet 'Dromeda even could do it for you," said Ted. "Been a fair while since she took Potions, but she and Professor Slughorn still write. He wrote one of Dora's letters of recommendation for the Auror programme, you know, even though he never taught her. Andromeda Black's daughter had to be worth recommending, he thought."

Remus gave Tonks a bemused look, and she said, "The only person who thought I should be accepted _because _of the Black side of the family, instead of in spite of it. Thank Merlin, too, because Snape sure as hell wasn't going to write me any recommendations except to say I had an extraordinary knack for breaking everything in sight while trying to brew potions."

"It's not the werewolf thing." Ted's eyes drew Tonks', and he gave her a look that conveyed the _you see? _which he'd declined to say. "Well -- not directly."

Arms folding again, resting on his paunch, Ted approached Remus, who let go of Tonks and stepped slightly in front of her as he turned to face her father, man-to-man.

"Ministry's awfully anti-werewolf now," said Ted, "though I'm sure you don't need me telling you. While I don't think it's fair the way they've tied your lot's hands, I can't help but worry what'll happen to Dora if she marries you."

A million arguments with Remus replayed in Tonks' mind, every talk they'd had about marriage prior to two nights ago, when he'd proposed. The phrase _too dangerous _was a dizzying drone in her ears as her dad talked on:

"Giving you the benefit of the doubt that you keep it quiet till now for her protection, I can't work out why you'd throw it all away now, when it's more dangerous than ever for her to be associated with her. I mean, you're the ones that have passed along all those whisperings around the Ministry about Muggle-born registration. If they've got it out for full humans, you can bet your buttocks they'll be rounding up werewolves or worse."

Tonks' toes tingled in her boots to lunge at her dad; her fingers itched to draw her wand, and her vocal chords already felt stretched with the _Silencio! _she wanted desperately to bellow.

But, as if he somehow felt all these urges within her, Remus stepped sideways, more directly between her and her dad. As he did, she saw, bizarrely, that the wry grin was on his face again. His tired face.

_Dad's getting to him..._

_But he's grinning. Wryly. Focus on that. _

"Worse than werewolves?" Remus said. "Or worse than rounding them up?"

Andromeda laughed.

Hardly believing it -- but then, Tonks hardly believed she and her dad weren't seeing eye-to-eye -- she sank onto the sofa again, dragging a hand through her hair as she looked at her mother.

"Please tell me you're laughing because you agree with me that the biggest problem here is Dad's grammar."

Andromeda smiled, and sympathetically at that, but said, "Actually, I share some of your father's concerns."

Tonks started to sit up, mouth open with a protest on her tongue, which died with one look from her mother.

"My fears, however, have less to do with the Ministry than what my sister might do if word of your marriage reaches her. Which I think Frank and Alice Longbottom would tell you is worse than anything the Ministry is capable."

She gave Remus a wobbly smile, and he returned it, grimly. Tonks sensed something pass between them, something wholly empathetic.

Unfortunately, it didn't also have the power to relieve her frustration.

"We're not going to post an announcement in the _Daily Bleeding Prophet_!" she cried.

"The wedding will be very quiet, Andromeda," said Remus. "In fact, our entire guest list consists only of you and Ted, and Alastor Moody for security."

Andromeda's smile became relieved -- and, like Remus', wry. "I expect he'll want to inspect your wedding robes and shoes with that magical eye before you dress."

"And probably after, as well," added Remus, chuckling. "We must be constantly vigilant in fashion."

"I thought the Order didn't trust anyone in the Ministry," said Ted.

Tonks leapt to her feet, again catching her knee on the coffee table. "Did he say a word about the bloody Ministry?"

"Nymphadora..."

"You said you were to be bonded, so naturally I assumed the Ministry, as they're the only ones with the authority invested in them to do that."

"Actually," said Remus, "they're not."

Ted opened his mouth in the word _who_, but before he could get it out, Andromeda broke in, in her quietly authoritative way. "I just wonder if it wouldn't be better for you to wait. Two days is--"

"_Wait?_" Tonks stopped in her tracks, a slow laugh rippling out as she clutched at her hair. She felt deranged, and sounded it, and probably looked it, too, but she didn't care. "I know I'm a tad bit flighty when it comes to hair colour, but I'm an Auror, Mum. A little credit, please, that I've actually thought quite a lot about this. Remus and I've been talking about getting married for..."

She hesitated, her treacherous inner voice saying, _Argued about getting married, don't you mean?_

Catching her hand, Remus said, "For a year and a half, at least."

"Yeah. And we're not even eloping, like you and Dad."

Andromeda smiled patiently, and seated herself once more in the wing-backed chair, carefully smoothing her skirts in an almost physical representation of composing her thoughts.

Tonks darted her eyes sidelong at her dad and saw him watching her mum with an almost strained expression. She knew that look well; it meant he desperately wanted to say something, but wasn't about to say it with Andromeda poised to speak, even if she was taking her sweet time about it. Something in Tonks loosened, just slightly, toward him. She wished her mum would just bloody get on with it, too...

Thank Merlin, Andromeda did. "I don't doubt your certainty, Nymphadora, that this is the right path for you. Neither am I questioning your decision."

_Finally, someone outside the Order who doesn't think you're barking!_

Tonks could have hurdled the coffee table and kissed her mother, so good it was to hear trust expressed. She wasn't sure she ever had before. Not that Andromeda had never said she was proud of her daughter's career path.

But pride wasn't the same thing as faith.

Even so, Tonks remained where she was, her body tense. "But?"

"Not _but_, precisely," said Andromeda, "only -- someday you may look back and wish you'd waited, so you could savour your wedding."

Unexpectedly, a memory Tonks hadn't realised she'd held onto forced itself to the front of her mind: of coming home from the wedding of some family friend and asking her mum if she could try on her wedding robes and then, when informed her mother didn't have any wedding robes, asking to see pictures -- which also did not exist. Tonks couldn't recall ever having seen Andromeda look sadder -- not even when Bellatrix and Sirius were sent to Azkaban, because she'd just been angry then, at least as far as Tonks saw.

Tonks didn't know what to say.

She suspected what this really boiled down to was that Andromeda wanted to give her the proper wedding she hadn't been given by her own parents. Like Molly was, at this very moment, planning for Bill. Complete with a _Daily Prophet _announcement that the bride, given away in marriage by her father, had worn robes of ivory satin, and stubbornly insisted on the bubblegum pink hair that signified all the great sex she was going to have on her honeymoon.

It was all very touching, but...How could Tonks tell her mother she didn't care about any of that?

_And it won't help your case to say you really can't _afford _to wait..._

"In other words," said Ted, "don't jump the broom." His broad, shiny forehead beneath his receding blond hair smoothed with relief at having let his words out at last, though tension edged them. "Which is rather how this looks to me. You've shilly-shallied for more than a year. Again, I want to know why you've changed your mind now?"

He and Remus were now stood practically toe-to-toe. Ted, though actually the shorter of the pair, seemed taller because of his girth. Even so, Remus' stance imbued the inner power belied by his lined face and grey hair and slender build. He looked as Tonks had only seen him in battle mode: absolutely steady, undoubtedly sure, totally unafraid.

_He's about to do battle for you. _

Looking not at his opponent, but at _her_, he began to speak:

"If Dora had had her way, we _would_ have married when times were better. The shilly-shallying was all me, because, like you, Ted, I feared what binding herself to me in marriage might mean. I kept away from her for a good deal of last year because I realised it was unfair to take the love she offered me without giving her what she truly wanted.

"Separation, however, was no good. Somehow, impossible as it must seem to you, as it honestly seems to me, Dora is as miserable without me as I am without her. She needs me as much as I need her. It is _me_ she wants, not marriage -- but I cannot fully atone for the wrongs I have done her by offering her anything less than that permanent commitment."

His voice was so quiet -- the gentle rasp, as always -- but it resonated within Tonks, as if he'd amplified himself with a Sonorus Spell.

This was Remus...her protector...her Patronus, whose love cast out all fear.

"Dora wants to be my wife quite as much as I want to be her husband, and I swear to you Ted, Andromeda, even an Unbreakable Vow, should you ask me to, that I will not hurt her again. I shall do everything within my power to keep her happy and safe. As her husband."

He fell silent then, but his speech lingered in the air, almost a residual magic, which suspended time. Tonks could have remained in this moment forever; there was nothing at all now that she needed, having heard, seen, _felt _those words from Remus.

Of course, the moment did not go on forever. Hours...days...months...years might have passed...But it did end; broken, once again, by Ted.

Who, Tonks realised, had moved back from Remus, and seemed to have shrunk.

"Well," he said, with a tight smile. "You do know how to make a speech to a girl's dad."

He turned to Tonks, who wanted very much to throw her arms around him but held back because, as Ted approached...Blimey, he seemed _old_.

Or older, at any rate.

For the first time, she saw silver in his fair hair, noted fine lines on his face even though his extra weight kept signs of his age at bay. He would turn fifty this year. He ought to have a big party of all his friends and family, planned by his wife, daughter, and new son-in-law. Damn Voldemort and the Death Eaters and the sodding corrupt Ministry to hell!

With a squeeze, Remus released her hand and stepped back to stand just behind her so she could speak to her father; one hand, however, remained at the small of her back.

"I'm sorry, Dora," said Ted, his eyes watery; Tonks' stung as, for a horrible, awful moment, her heart hammered in dread.

_Oh God...All that, and he's going to say, I'm sorry, but I still can't give you my blessing. It'll destroy Remus, not to mention devastate you that not even your own father--_

"I haven't meant to hurt you," he said, "or the man you love. I just want you to be happy, and safe -- like Remus does," he added, the tiniest begrudging note in his voice. With a sigh, he said, "But none of us is safe these days, are we?"

Ted's face, and behind him, across the room beside her chair, Andromeda's, swam in Tonks' welling eyes. As if he could see her face, Remus' hand rubbed soothingly up her back, stopping at the base of her neck, his fingertips soft and warm on her skin.

"I've never been happier, Dad. In fact, I think I'm safer than most people."

She drew her wand, and thinking of Remus' most recent speech in defence of their marriage, said, "_Expecto Patronum._"

Both her parents' jaws dropped, and Remus' hand tightened on her shoulder as the huge, silver werewolf head emerged from the tip of her wand, muzzle tilted up toward the ceiling, maw open in a silent howl. That was, until the rest of his body emerged, at which point he turned and nuzzled her before bounding around the room on his long, lean legs, sniffing at Remus and Ted and Andromeda (who looked at it as if she'd never seen anything more beautiful or powerful in her life, and which filled Tonks with confidence that Remus could subdue the Dark Creature within).

Finally, the spirit glided out the open window to drive away the Dementors that no doubt had encroached upon the neighbourhood since Remus' and Tonks' arrival.

"Little pig's been blown away by the Big Good Wolf, then?" said Ted. He let out a low whistle. "Good Patronus -- only I did like that _Oinkus _thing the old one did."

"There's always _Howlus_," Andromeda suggested.

"True," Ted said. "A howling werewolf Patronus -- that'd scare Dementors and Death Eater bastards shit--" He caught Andromeda's eye and paled. "Er, gormless, I mean."

"And most probably a lot of non-Dementors and Death Eaters," said Remus, "so perhaps we ought to stick with something more along the lines of _Woofus_ or _Barkus_?"

"_Bow-wowus_?" Tonks said.

Remus eyelids drooped in mock-annoyance under the straight line formed by his sandy eyebrows. "A _little_ dignity, if you please, Nymphadora."

"Only if you don't call me Nymphadora."

"He'll have to call you Nymphadora when you're married, won't he?" said Andromeda, looking maddeningly smug.

Before another squabble could break out about what the hell Tonks was going to be called as a married witch, Ted became serious again.

"Right, then. Married."

Remus' arm slipped around Tonks' waist, pulling her close against him. His lips blessed her hair. The act of affection did not escape Ted's notice.

"I don't know you well," he said to Remus, "but it's obvious you love Dora. I won't make you swear an Unbreakable Vow not to hurt her, because you will, and she'll hurt you, it's just a fact of marriage...Between you making a damn good speech and me always saying she's got a good head under that crazy hair, even if she wasn't sorted into Ravenclaw like her old dad, I can hardly say anything but..." He trust out his hand, and went very red in the face. "Er, let's break out the champagne, shall we?"

He looked like he needed it; behind Tonks, Remus _felt _like it. He kept his arm around her as he reached the other out to shake Ted's, and Tonks suspected it had less to do with affection than with the fact that she probably could've knocked him over with a quill. Though she had a strange feeling that it wasn't down to surprise that Ted had given his blessing, even if not in so many words. It was some other, entirely different, reason. And Tonks didn't have a bloody clue what.

The drink revived them both, though, and laughter rang out again as hugs were exchanged all around, with a second round of champagne following Ted patting Remus awkwardly on the back. It worked such a wonder on Ted that Tonks almost wondered if her mum hadn't done a Cheering Charm on him when no one was watching.

"So!" he said, settling into his armchair, summoning an ottoman to put up his feet. "Just who's this implicitly trusted non-Ministry person who'll be marrying you, and when and where and how's he doing it?"

Tonks exchanged a glance with Remus, took a drink, then said, "Remember what you said, Dad, about not jumping the broom? Funny, that..."

_To be continued..._


	4. Right on Cue

**4. Right On Cue**

_Crack!_

Tonks stumbled as the gravel surface of car park behind The Snakecatcher public house rose up suddenly -- and unevenly -- beneath her feet. She was just registering the pothole she'd Apparated into -- _Damn it, not again!_ -- when another _Crack! _erupted in the space beside her.

Remus materialised with his hands burrowed deep in his trouser pockets in his characteristic unruffled stance, but looked momentarily perplexed by the difference in their height, a good six inches more than usual. He opened his mouth to speak (_Thank God; she'd been starting to think one of her parents had pulled him aside and made him swear an Unbreakable Vow of Silence._), most likely to ask why she'd morphed, but then his eyes darted down to the pothole.

His lips twisted into a smirk. "Forgot about the pothole, did you? Well, at least it wasn't filled with whatever that was this time. It stained your socks, by the way, and I'm sorry, I know the ballerina pigs were your favourites, but I _was_ able to get the pong out of your trainers at least."

"Are you going to be a gentleman and give me a hand, or am I going to have to call you that other G-word we talked about?"

Remus slid one hand from his pocket and offered it to her. "When have I ever been a git?"

"Never," said Tonks, grasping it as he half-lifted her out the hole. "_Great _git, on the other hand..."

_Now, now, Tonks, don't be cross just because he's managed to say no more about how the engagement announcement went than he said about how he expected it to go, which you didn't think was possible. _

_When was he supposed to talk, anyway? During the hundred-yard walk from your mum and dad's front door to the Apparition point? Mid-Apparition? Give the man a bloody _break

_He used up his word quota for a _month_ with that speech. And it won your dad over, in case you forgot. _

Of course she hadn't forgotten. In fact, that was why she wanted so badly to talk to him about it.

In defiance of that favourite self-coined maxim of his about werewolves not being popular dinner guests, he had proved a model one at her parents' house: an interesting conversationalist, talking more about himself than he had in ages, the sort of amusing stories about his school days and work abroad such as he'd used to tell her when they first started going out, as well as a number of stories from their courtship.

He'd also seemed to strike up quite the rapport with her mother. Which had, at first, seemed strange to Tonks, but by dessert she was beginning to see their similar temperaments, humour. She supposed, when you came right down to it, that their backgrounds weren't necessarily all that different. Remus might not have to rise above the family of his birth, but he and Andromeda were both connected by blood to people with ideals that could not be more contrary to either of their natures.

For all that, however, Tonks had got to know Remus well enough over the years to know that beneath that personable and even charming demeanour, he could be thinking and feeling...well, anything. And very often not anything like the mood he was projecting.

Such was the case now, she was sure of it. She'd felt it in his body when he'd held her as he shook hands with her dad. Not that she didn't believe the things he'd said -- she did, every word. It was that something else lay beneath his words, something wrong, which she needed to know so she could put it to right for him.

She just wished she had a bloody clue what the hell that might be.

Tugging at Remus' hand, she strode toward the road which veered into the forest and eventually became the unpaved footpath to the -- _their! _-- cottage, but he didn't budge. She looked back at him, her mouth open in question.

Remus gestured his head toward the pub behind him. "Fancy nipping in for a game of pool?"

Tonks was stood on level ground now, yet the request wrong-footed her. Not the request itself; on holidays to Brockenhurst they often walked up after dinner for a pint and pool or, if the table had already been claimed by people who actually knew how to truly play, without wands, she and Remus amused themselves trying to follow the plots of the Muggle programmes on the big screen television. But tonight she didn't care for TV; she didn't particularly want to play pool, either.

When Remus played pool, he concentrated on how to make his shots look like real shots and not like magic. Also he was cocksure about her checking him out when he bent over the table with his pool cue. The latter she normally found strangely attractive, but tonight the two factors combined would make him downright _impossible _to read. He certainly wouldn't talk about serious things in such a public place. By the time they got home, she would be wracked with pent-up tension and probably blow up at him when he slipped into bed with her, relaxed, and began to kiss her neck and shoulders in that way she never could help reacting to. He would rub her back, and soothe her, and they would make love and he would drift off to sleep whilst _she _lay awake remembering they hadn't talked.

They were back to life as usual.

Which was why Tonks gave him a crisp nod and said, "I could go for kicking your arse at pool, yeah," and let him lead her inside. Because life as usual, imperfect as it could be, was a hell of a lot better than life-as-it-had-been-for-the-past-year. Also, she got momentarily side-tracked from frustration as she considered how she'd always thought, every time they came up here, how nice it would be to live near this village and be one of the pub regulars; to have a routine with Remus -- not just on holiday -- of strolling up after dinner, meandering in the forest to watch the ponies and look for the odd unicorn...Now that really would be their life, because in just _two days_...

_You're going to marry Remus Lupin!_

_Who promised to do better by you -- so bloody _trust him_ already!_

Inside The Snakecatcher, they found the pool table unoccupied; everyone was gathered around the television, watching what Tonks and Remus gathered was a very important football match. She asked him if he thought it was the World Cup, because she'd heard once that Muggles had one for football, but he didn't know. The only time they had tried to watch football, they'd thrown up their hands at ever understanding the game. What _was _the point of all that running up and down that great field chasing a ball that only moved because you _kicked_ it? Why would anyone do that voluntarily?

The good thing about football nights was that with all the attention on the television, they could be a little less guarded about their use of magic in pool. Which they used rather a lot, because the long, oddly heavy pool cues felt right awkward in her clumsy hands, and even Remus, natural and graceful as he made it look, said he felt the same. Not to mention they'd only guessed at the rules by watching other people play, and she and Remus seemed to have mixed several variations in, along with the magic.

_And maybe, if the luck you've had tonight continues,_ she thought as she found cues, popped a Muggle coin into the table for the balls, and set up the game, while Remus, waiting for their beers at the bar, watched her with a smile, _he'll be less guarded than usual in public with his emotions. _

When he joined her at the pool table, leaning in to kiss her cheek as he pressed a foaming pint of beer into her hand, he said, "Does buying you a drink make up for me being a great git in the car park?"

Tonks eyed him as she took a drink. "Maybe...If you let me go first."

Remus set his beer on the edge of the table and made a sweeping bow. "My credo, Elphine, is ladies first."

Smirking at him as she swept past and swapped her mug for a cue, she said, "Especially when you're raiding buildings that might contain Death Eaters?"

"Especially then. Especially when the ladies are highly trained professional Dark Wizard Chasers."

"You really are my knight in shining armour."

The only thing Tonks broke in the opening break was the beer bottle she knocked out of a bloke's hand with the butt end of her pool cue.

"Oh for the love of Merlin! I forgot to cast the bloody--"

She caught herself at the brink of saying _Shield Charm_ in front of the annoyed football watcher whose drink she'd spilt and the pissed-off looking teenaged boy who was clearing tables. As she launched into her usual bout of profuse, red-faced apologies to the parties affected by her blasted clumsiness, she somehow managed to notice that Remus wasn't wearing his usual look of poorly concealed amusement. In fact, as he fished in his pocket for money to buy the man a new beer, he watched her intently, scrutinising..._critically_.

Inwardly, Tonks screamed in frustration. If only this were a Wizarding pub, she could she could've _Reparoed _the bottle and siphoned the beer back into it with her wand. Not that a Wizarding pub would have a pool table to begin with... As it was, she'd made a crap first impression on two villagers. (_Why the bloody hell couldn't you be morphed as someone else tonight, so they won't know straight away that the new Mrs. Lupin is a total idiot?)_ She also had to create a diversion so Remus could Transfigure a couple of knuts into Muggle money, as he'd had just enough one him to pay for their two beers. And Transfiguring money wasn't precisely _legal_ -- not to mention, very temporary.

_The barman'll hate you, and you and Remus both will probably be banned from ever darkening the door again..._

_Bang-up start to your village life, Tonks!_

And what _had _that look on Remus' face meant?

She tried to read his expression from across the bar, but rowdy football fans kept getting in the way, and the time he returned to her, it had vanished,

"That went pretty well, I thought. _Protego totallum pool table._"

Tonks' automatic response was to whack him with her pool cue, but at the last second before contact, but Remus reacted instinctively and caught the end before it struck him.

"With your parents, I mean."

The way he just blurted out the thoughts she'd expected to have to pry out of him, and the fact that he'd _smiled _as he said them, caught Tonks so completely off-balance that it was a very good job she was holding on to the pool cue which Remus still had the other end of.

What _wasn't _a good job was that the pool cue only had the power to keep her upright, and didn't give her a better response than her automatic sarky one.

"Which part? The bit where Mum made it pretty plain she didn't love our plan for the ceremony? Or the bit where Dad was a total prat to you?"

For just a second, that odd look flickered on Remus' face again as he released her pool cue, only for his grin to stretch even wider, eyes glimmering with a joke as he retrieved his own from where it was propped against the table.

"I confess I don't know your mother as well as you..."

He bent to make the break Tonks had missed, positioning the cue between his long fingers, wand held discreetly alongside the tip as he lined up with the cue ball.

"...but she didn't strike me as particularly critical when she brought up the wedding of Pirithous and Hippodamia. _Dilabor_."

The balls scattered across the green felt of the pool table, a half a dozen of them finding their way into pockets.

Remus straightened up and grinned. "If your father, on the other hand, had been the one to talk about drunken centaurs attempting to make off with the bride, then I might have taken it as criticism. However, as your mother laughed with what appeared to be very genuine amusement at my response, I must assume she was only teasing me."

True, Andromeda and Tonks _both _had cracked up at the dinner table -- which Tonks wasn't sure she'd ever seen her mother do before -- when Remus said, wryly, _If I were marrying Dolores Umbridge and Magorian were the Centaur in question, then yes, I might be a bit worried about having my bride kidnapped, never to be heard from again. Seeing as it's Firenze, however, and I wouldn't marry Umbridge if she were the last witch on earth and passed legislation that _required _me_ _to marry her..._

"Dad didn't think it was very funny when you said about Umbridge not coming within a hundred yards of you except to arrest you." Tonks tapped the cue ball into two yellow balls. "_Decumbo side pocket and left corner pocket_."

She watched the balls zoom across the table, into the far pockets rather than the nearest, as she'd directed. Not that she cared which went where, so long as she sunk them.

"No," Remus agreed, "but I don't know if I'd say he was a prat so much as..."

The tip of his tongue poked out between his lips as he focused on the cue ball, which had stopped directly in line with a red ball, perilously close to a corner pocket. Tonks wondered if he was thinking of some of the stronger words there were to describe what Ted had acted like, none of which she could bear to attach to her dad, no matter how fitting they were.

"_Transeo_," Remus muttered, giving his wand the slightest flick.

The cue skipped over the ball--

--and, in the sort of fluke way that only ever seemed to happen to Tonks (and was rather nice to see happen to Remus, actually), it flew right off the table.

_Right at her head. _

Dropping her cue, Tonks dove to the floor to keep from being decapitated by the rogue ball, which flew with all the force of a Bludger. She stayed under the table as it ricocheted off the Shield Charm erected around them, saving the young waiter from severe head trauma, though he did nearly drop his tub of dirty dishes and blink in confusion when he saw the ball do a mid-air about-face just before striking him.

"What the hell?"

"What the hell what?" Remus asked the boy pleasantly as he watched the ball bounce twice on the table before bumping a yellow ball into a pocket.

"Didn't you bloody see that?"

"Didn't I bloody see what?"

The boy glowered. "You nearly _killed_ me with that effing cue ball, then it turned right around in the air!"

As she stood, Tonks saw Remus looking rather at a loss as to how to cover this breech of the Statute of Secrecy. Though _she _was nearly killed from trying not to laugh, she pinned the boy with her best no-nonsense Auror face, which included a sharply raised eyebrow.

"Snuck a few drinks tonight, have you?"

"No!" he cried, too defensively, and his voice cracked. Face flushing tomato red, he shuffled off to clean a table, shaking his head and muttering to himself that he had to lay off the booze and that he hadn't _really_ seen what he thought he saw and the bitchy lady with the stupid hair had nothing to do with it.

Tonks turned back to Remus, and said, "Maybe we ought to try it without magic for a bit? Only I'm afraid if we have any more incidents like that, you'll want to start Obliviating people."

The crowd around the telly erupted, toppling chairs as they leapt up to cheer.

"Be a shame to deprive that lot of the memory of the match, wouldn't it?" she added. "Nothing to talk about around the water coolers."

"I don't think we've anything to worry about." Remus watched them take their seats again, sat at the edges, engrossed in the football, then looked at Tonks cheekily. "Anyway, you'll never catch up with me if you don't use magic."

"Not much to catch up to since that last ball doesn't count."

"Why in Merlin's name not?"

"You scratched! The cue ball went off the table!"

"But it returned to play!"

"Because the Shield deflected it!"

"If we're playing with magic, then that counts! And your father was just being a father, not a prat."

As if another ball had shot off the table and into Tonks' head, the squabble about magic or no magic was driven clear out of her thoughts.

_Here you go, Tonks. Another chance presents itself to you to talk about kids! Will you take it this time, or will you keep acting like bloody Gryffindors have a monopoly on courage even though your favourite saying's that they don't?_

Bending to retrieve her cue from the floor and pocketing her wand, she asked, "Are you saying if _you _were a father you'd talk to your daughter's fiancé like Dad talked to you?"

"Of course not. _I_ would growl and snarl and bare my very sharp teeth."

_Go on, then! He's actually set it up perfectly for you to say, 'Since you keep bringing them up, I reckon it's safe to assume you expect to have kids one day, and since you keep cracking jokes about the werewolf thing, it must not be an inherited condition you're afraid of passing along, like my idiot ex-housemate thinks?' The answers to all your questions are mere...well, questions...away! _

She couldn't say _that_...Could she?

_Of course you can! He's bloody _joking _about it!_

But it was different to joke about your own condition than to make light of someone else's. And anyway, mightn't the werewolf jokes be his way of deflecting questions about a subject he didn't want to discuss?

_Just. bloody. say it!!_

"Talking of dads..." She tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear, then hunched over the table, lining up her shot.

"Yes?"

Her eyes darted up from the cue ball. The inquisitiveness on Remus' face as he absently continued to chalk the end of his cue -- _dear Merlin, he really had no clue where here train of thought was _-- made her mouth go dry.

She looked down.

And blurted, "You've never called me Dora before."

_Bleeding coward._

Furious with herself, she took her shot.

And missed the cue ball entirely.

She straightened up, threw back her shoulders, and glowered at Remus. "You charmed that chalk to make me miss, didn't you?"

He smirked as he strode (or was that a swagger?) around the table to take his turn. "I don't believe I actually _called _you Dora at any time -- I merely _referred _to you as Dora."

His elbow moved to push the cue into the white ball, but he stopped the shot and turned his head toward her, wearing that look that said he knew she'd been looking at his bum, which irritated her, because for once she actually hadn't been!

"Only I didn't hear you correcting your dad when _he _called you Dora, so I assumed you didn't mind."

"I don't -- _from my dad_," she said as she ground chalk on her cue.

Remus took his shot.

And did not miss.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Every remaining ball received a hit in the proper sequence that sent another -- the black ball last -- into a pocket.

"I did not, in fact, charm the chalk to make you miss. I _did_, however, bewitch it to make _me_ win."

"You're a bigger, filthier cheating bastard than Mundungus Fletcher!"

"I should certainly hope so," said Remus, moving to replace his cue in the rack with what was _definitely _a swagger in his step. "And while we're on true confessions, I've always found it a bit impersonal to call you by your surname--"

"It's not _calling _me Tonks, it's _referring _to me as Tonks."

"--and now that you're soon to be my wife, it feels especially impersonal."

Annoyed as she was at him right now, the words _my wife_ falling from _his _lips, in regard to _her_, made her feel like she'd been hit with a Jelly-Insides Jinx. She couldn't ignore the romantic side of her (_God, Tonks, engagement's turning you into such a pathetic _sap) that wanted to leave behind everything of her old life that didn't immediately link her with Remus.

But as soppy as she was becoming, imagining Remus calling her _Dora_ in bed -- or anywhere, really, but especially in bed -- sent a shudder coursing down from her spine.

"You can't call me Dora."

Remus had just grabbed a chair from a nearby table and was sat on it the wrong way around, elbows propped on the back, as he drank his beer. His trouser legs rode up to reveal a bit of his brown and grey argyle socks.

"Why not?"

The way he was looking at her with the imploring and, more compelling, _mischievous_ blue eyes his fringe was falling boyishly into, Tonks found herself in very real danger of giving in. Quickly, she looked away from him and around the pub, found everyone glued to the television, and took out her wand.

"_Accio beer_."

Her glass levitated to her from the other side of the pool table as she pushed herself up to sit on the edge. She swigged her drink, then, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, pinned Remus with her gaze. Which wasn't really much of an accomplishment, since he'd already been looking at her with interest.

Much more difficult was making her pulse stop racing in response to that look. But she managed it with another drink.

"You can't call me Dora cos the _last_ bloody thing you need's a nickname connected with my dad to draw attention to the age gap."

Remus stared at her for a moment, then one light brown eyebrow hitched upward. "You think me calling you -- referring to you, I mean, as Dora would make me fall into the _too old _trap again?"

_Nice going, Tonks. Way to show him how much faith you've got in him. _

She hung her head.

And winced as he said, seeming to have read her thoughts, "_You _may not have any faith in me, but _I _think I could manage to say Dora without thinking of your father. If anything..."

There was a note of held-back laughter in his voice, that made her look up, and to her very great relief, she saw the upward tug at the corners of his mouth, and the light dancing in his eyes.

"...it might make me picture you in that tweedy middle-aged morph you've been known to tweak me with."

Tonks tried to glower at him, but her treacherous mouth betrayed her by releasing a laugh. Remus' slightly raspy chuckle mingled with it as he got up, leaving his beer on the table, plucked her pint from her hands, and wrapped his arms around her. He held her so close that she felt rumble in his chest as his laughter gradually quieted, trailing away with a contented sigh that might have been his or hers or both of theirs.

"Why do you have to call me something other than Tonks?" she asked.

"I thought we'd agreed it was referring, not calling?"

"It's not like everyone else is going to switch names for me just cos I got married."

Remus pulled back from her slightly, and his cheeky grin softened as he removed one arm from around her to rake a hand through his longish, thick greying hair.

"I don't know," he said. "I suppose it was just that it seemed very strange to talk about you as Tonks to your parents. Especially as I kept thinking of them as Mr. and Mrs. Tonks even though Ted proved his paternity by expressing an aversion to formal names."

Tonks pulled a face, which made Remus chuckle again before going on:

"When he said Dora it rather stuck in my head as something affectionate..."

He leant in and kissed her lips. "...and sweet..." He kissed her again. "I got to daydreaming..."

"At the same time as Dad grilled you about being a suitable husband? And anyway, what about Elphine? That's affectionate...and sweet..."

"Mm...but also very private, and far too intimate for mere _referring_."

He kissed her a third time, a little more lingeringly and intently, and by the time he pulled back again, and spoke to her in a lower tone, the discussion had been pushed to the hazy reaches of her mind.

"Don't you want to hear what I was daydreaming about?"

You couldn't argue with a man who was stood between your knees like that, slipping his fingers just under the hem of your skirt to touch your bare legs as he kissed your neck, his breath so warm and manly on your skin...

You _could_, however, fold your arms across your chest, putting a bit of space between you, and say huffily, "Go on, then."

"Being out and about and running into friends who ask how married life's treating me, and how my wife is, and me saying _Dora's wonderful, thanks, and I absolutely love being her husband_."

When he put it like that...

"If I were you I'd refer to me as Mrs. Lupin, but I reckon that's strange and you'd probably think that's _really _tweedy--"

"Mrs. Lupin's my mum, sorry. Too many associations with Sirius saying it in far too flirtatious a way."

"Which ought to make you all the more sympathetic to _my _plight, of having far too many associations of Dad calling me Dora." Tonks kissed him. "But fine, if you really can't keep referring to me as Tonks and Dora makes you feel like a proper newlywed, go ahead -- just not in front of me. And you're sure as hell not allowed to engrave it in your wedding ring. And if anybody else starts with the--"

"I solemnly swear, you shall always be Elphine to me." He flashed a wicked grin. "_Dora_."

Chuckling, he kissed the tip of her nose, then moved away, whistling, he popped a Transfigured fifty pence piece in the slot and waited for the balls to drop, then began to arrange them in the rack for another game. Tonks' groan was cut off by her inner voice:

_Just what you need! Another name to tell people not to call you! Not that you don't deserve it, with the way you completely chickened out of asking Remus about kids!_

She grabbed her beer and drank. "Actually, Remus, there was something else I wanted to say to you about dads."

"Oh? What's that, then?"

She started to take a deep breath--

_Don't hesitate!_

Forgoing the deep breath, she blurted, "Would you ever want to be one?"

Remus' eyes flicked up from the ball he was just placing in the remaining corner of the rack. "Be a...dad?"

Tonks nodded, slowly.

Her _yeah _was drowned out by the cheers and fists pounding on tables from the crowd at the television, which seemed to have doubled.

_Huzzah, indeed! _cried her inner voice. _Wasn't so hard, was it?_

No, she had to admit, it hadn't been. But now she had to explain herself, and she wasn't stupid enough to think _that _would be a piece of Cauldron Cake.

She took another drink, thinking to go for casual, like Remus' approach to talking about how it went with her parents.

"Only Des asked me if we were going to have kids, and it occurred to me in all the million times we argued about getting married, kids never came up, so I didn't know if that meant we both wanted them or both _didn't_ want them or just hadn't given it a thought, and then you started joking about it, which I suppose ought to have answered the question for me--"

"Have you?"

"Have I what?"

"Given it a thought. Do you want to be a mum?"

"Honestly..."

_Of course honestly! And quit looking at your stupid orange fingernail tracing the lip of your pint glass and meet. Remus'. eyes!_

She looked up at him just as he took a drink. Her eyes followed the line of his throat as his Adam's apple bobbed with the slow roll of the beer.

What was he thinking?

_What are _you _thinking? _

_What if you want different things to each other? This is why you wanted him to go first. What if your answer isn't the one he wants to hear? What if his isn't what _you _want to hear?_

Hell -- did she even know what she wanted to hear?

_Just say it! You've blurted out worse things before!_

"I don't know."

A heartbeat, as Remus lowered his glass. "Neither do I."

Feeling as though a floodgate had opened, especially as the volume of the pub was rising with the excitement of the football match, Tonks moved close to him and said loudly, "If I had to say _right now_, it would be a resounding no--"

"Absolutely no--"

"But I can't say _never_--"

"No, neither can I--"

"I do like kids--"

"Me, too--"

"And think I could see us being a mum and dad -- you, especially, you'd be a _great_ dad."

"Ta -- and the feeling is entirely mutual, you know. I think that's why I did start joking about kids, I've just got caught up in the idea of being married to you, having a family seemed perfectly natural--"

"I'm not sure you're right about me being a good mum. I'd probably drop the poor kid on its head, or scare it with my hair."

"Are you quite certain you want to enter a frightenability contest against _me_?"

"Frightenability? Is that even a word?"

In that instant of their eyes locking together in laughter, Tonks knew she had no need to elaborate further than that joke for Remus to understand her doubts and fears about parenthood; for she knew everything he had left unsaid, as well.

Remus was leaning against the pool table again, and Tonks sidled up to him, resting her head on his shoulder. "We'll just figure out together what we want."

He wrapped his arms around her, but not in a simple act of affection. He felt rigid against her, and at the same time, relying on her for support. Just as she'd felt at her parents' house, after his speech.

She raised her head and saw his face set in grim lines.

"It's so irrevocable," he said.

"Sort of the point of marriage, isn't it? Otherwise it wouldn't be any different to just going out."

His eyes were fixed straight ahead, not looking at her, nor even at the pub interior. He looked as if he was trying to see something, but couldn't.

"We'll be bound to each other, Elphine. In a way, we already are."

Tonks thought of all the magical proof she'd found for their relationship: Amortentia...her morphing...her Patronus.

"I meant what I said about getting caught up in the idea of marriage and a family." He wore a faint smile now, and held her more tightly. "It's wonderful, and I want it all with you."

"But?"

His expression fell, and he unwrapped his arms from around her as he met her eyes. "Try as I might, I cannot escape this old thought pattern of not wanting to impose on other people. For me to have that life -- _your life_ must be altered forever."

Tonks had to ball her hands into fists on her lap to keep from hitting him round the head, and literally bite her tongue to keep from saying, _I've told you a million times, I don't care!_

_That's not what he needs. He needs to hear that you've thought through it, that it's as earth-shattering to you as it is to him. _

"When you put it like that," she said, "it does sound huge and frightening. Werewolves aren't the only people who get cold feet, though."

"Actually, we don't -- the fur, you know."

"And when it comes to kids, it seems like nine times out of ten, the powers that be think it's fun to screw with you, so it's kind of stupid to even bother with a plan."

Remus opened his mouth in protest, but Tonks went on before he could get a word out:

"Do you really think Arthur and Molly knew before they said _I do _that they'd have seven children? Molly told me once that if a Seer had told her that, she'd have asked for her money back. Every other day Fleur's either _never een a million years going to rueen 'er perfeect feegure weeth ze babie_s or _going to 'ave seex beautiful Veela girls and seex 'andsome red-'aired boys_...And Mum and Dad's plan _definitely _hadn't included kids for a couple more years when I popped out all pink-haired and screaming."

At the last, Remus looked at her with clear surprise.

"Think about when I was born," Tonks said.

"Are you sure you want me to think about that? I mean, you were just going on about me not needing any reminders of the age gap--"

"Shut it, you!" Laughing in mild frustration, Tonks pressed her hand over his mouth, his breath and the vibration of his chuckle tickling her palm. "Honestly, Remus, I've got a great point here."

"Smmy. Gnn pzz." He kissed her hand, and she withdrew it from his mouth, just enough for him to repeat, "Sorry. Go on, please."

"You know better than I do what current events were when my parents got married. You-Know-Who was rising to power, and mum's sister was currying favour with him, and had my mum and her Muggle-born husband at the top of her Death Eater Initiation Rites Victim List. Trust me, Mum and Dad did _not _time my birth with that on purpose."

She paused, for the first time realising how young her parents had been then, and having an inkling of how terrifying those days must have been. Werewolf thing aside, she and Remus could very well be a case of history repeating itself. If they'd known what would happen, would they have got married?

_If you knew what lay in your path, Tonks, would _you?

Taking his hand in hers, she said, "You can't plan much in life, Remus. And you can't let the unknown make you second-guess your decisions. You're right, the choices we're both making to be together _do _impose on each other. Married or not, our futures are still mysteries. You're looking at a witch who's just damn _glad _not to have to face hers alone."

Remus gave her a small smile, and brought her hand to his mouth. "I'm not second-guessing, really, I'm not, and believe me, there's nothing worse than being alone after being with you. It's just..." He looked away again, and swallowed. "I stood up and said _ I will _and _I shall_ so definitively to your father...And the other night when I told you I wanted our bond to be a magical one..."

He faltered, and Tonks squeezed his hand, and leant toward him to peck his cheek. "You were wonderful."

"I'm glad you think so, but I am afraid I cannot help but feel it was the height of audacity for me to say such things."

Tonks didn't know what to say.

_Of all the times, Tonks, when he finally opens up to you, more open than he's ever been..._

But she really didn't know. An awful thought was stealing through her, as well, which had begun to creep in when he'd first said irrevocable, only it hadn't fully formed till now.

Her hand felt clammy, and slackened around his. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears.

"Elphine?"

She couldn't look at him. "When you suggested Handfasting..."

_Oh God, Tonks, you're not asking him this...You _can't_ ask him this..._

But she heard her voice go own without her brain's permission:

"It wasn't because the year and a day bit appealed to you...Was it? I mean, you're not thinking I'll regret it next year, and want the chance to..." She swallowed painfully. "That I might want to..._undo_ it. Or that..._you might_ want to...Are you?"

The last question had barely left her mouth when an aghast look crossed Remus' face, and then he was enfolding her in his arms again, practically pulling her into his lap.

"Oh no, Elphine, no! _Merlin_, no!"

He kissed her forehead, her cheek, her lips, and his hand stroked her hair.

"I should have said...I can't believe I didn't say...Firenze asked if that was the sort of matrimonial bond we sought, and I told him no. Come next summer, you and I will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary."

Relieved beyond words, Tonks took his face in her hands and kissed him for all she was worth.

When they parted, it was to cheers and high fives and fists pumping the air and feet pounding on the floor.

_It's not for you, you sentimental idiot. It's for the stupid football on the sodding television! _

"So it's till death do us part?" she said, loudly, over the rumpus.

"No, actually," Remus said at the top of his voice, leaning toward her. "I thought we should be bonded for this life and the next."

A smile started to bloom on Tonks' face, and then she saw the glimmer in Remus' eyes.

With an ill-concealed grin, he added, "Mostly because I feared if I said anything less than eternal, you'd hex me to oblivion!"

She gave him a playful shove off the pool table, and he laughed, looking young and very happy.

Even so, she reached her hands out to him, drawing him to her again, and said, "You can be as audacious as you fancy, you know. I like it."

"I expect I'll get used to it," said Remus. "And I can't say as fear of the unknown outweighs how much I'm looking forward to spending a good long while having the house to ourselves while we figure out what our future holds."

Their lips had not quite touched when, "Oi!" The waiter's cracking voice jarred them apart. "You two gonna play pool or what? Only those blokes over there want the table."

"No," said Tonks, hopping down from table. "I think I'll audaciously suggest we go get started having the house to ourselves."

Remus grinned. "I think I audaciously agree."

"Oh," she said on the way out, as their fingers twined together, "I told you I'd kick your arse at pool."

_To be continued..._


	5. Tying the Knot

******5. Tying the Knot**

The Forbidden Forest lay all around, but the only part of it Tonks could see was the circle of hoof-beaten path lit by her wand. She was working very hard not to stumble over her skirts, but did exactly that when Alastor Moody's sudden gruff voice pierced the silence which before now had only been broken by the crunch of twigs and leaves beneath feet, the thump of his uneven wooden-legged gait, the rustling whisper of silk robes and cloaks swishing between tree trunks and over brush.

"Now let me get this straight."Mad-Eye paused, and Tonks held her breath, letting him do just that. It couldn't be a good sign that Mad-Eye was talking; he'd lectured for a full quarter of an hour before leaving her parents' house about the necessity of absolute silence and stealth as they crept through the Forbidden Forest.

Gripping her wand tighter, Tonks adjusted her gaze from simply keeping an eye on the frequently obscured path to a searching gaze that swept the forest surrounding them, ears straining for any sound not produced by herself, her parents, or Mad-Eye. The latter of whom was talking again:

"During the ceremony, you and Lupin's hands'll be tied together."

Tonks gritted her teeth for a moment before answering, fighting back a swear word at the undue caution -- and the fear he'd caused her to feel. A state of heightened paranoia was _not _where she wanted to be on her wedding day.

_Deep breath, Tonks. Laugh it off. Remus would. Say something smart-arse. _

"That's Handfasting in a nutshell, yeah."

Mad-Eye _hmmphed_, and Tonks knew though her back was to him that his rugged features had become yet craggier under the brim of his bowler as he frowned. As her inner voice had commanded, Tonks felt a giggle leap up in her chest in anticipation of what classic Mad-Eye observation was to follow, and she commanded her brain to pay attention and file it away to share with Remus later when they were at home and revisiting their wedding day over cake leftover from last night's party at her parents'. Her mum had told her she might find details of the day a bit hazy; but Tonks was determined not to miss a thing before, during, or after.

_It's your _wedding day_! Soon, and very soon, you'll be Mrs. Remus Lupin!_

She was so happy, Mad-Eye could tell her that in his expert Most-Famous-Auror-Of-the-Age opinion that Handfasting was a bad idea and he forbade it (which she could be reasonably sure he was going to say, in some form or fashion) and she would turn around and kiss that wizened cheek.

"So in case of an ambush," he mused, a scowl in his voice, "it'll be me, a book publisher, a housewitch, and a Centaur of questionable loyalties against possibly all the Death Eaters."

"I got an O in Defence Against the Dark Arts!" protested Andromeda at a stage whisper, and Ted piped in, "I charmed the _Monster Book of Monsters_, thanks very much, and I could hold my own in a duel even if I'm not Order of the Phoenix material."

"And Firenze's loyalties lie entirely with us," said Tonks, not bothering to squelch her chuckle. "S'why Remus asked him to marry us, Mad-Eye."

"But you and Lupin'll be vulnerable," Mad-Eye growled. "Do you _have _to be tied up? Or couldn't you at least get tied up with your wands drawn? Though it'd be a waste of time Vanishing the bonds instead of firing off offensive spells, and you might not be able to anyway since they'll be Centaur magic. Still, you might just have a shot at getting off a good Double Shield Charm to buy yourselves some time."

Tonks wheeled round to face him, barely catching the hem of her delicate gold organza cloak before it caught on the spines of a wild holly bush just off the path. Before she could say what she intended, that she hoped he meant to give five times as much attention to the security of the Delacour-Weasley wedding which didn't have the natural security of this odd, pre-dawn ceremony on secret Centaur land, Andromeda stopped dead in her tracks, hands over her mouth to muffle a scream. Behind her, Ted didn't stop in time and barrelled into her nearly knocking her off her feet. Mad-Eye's eye whirled in the opposite direction of his body, turning all round on the path, scanning the wood for whatever foul thing Andromeda had seen.

Which happened to be Tonks' feet, beneath her hitched-up pale gold silk skirt.

"Nymphadora, you _didn't _wear those horrible boots with your wedding gown!"

Tonks couldn't resist tweaking her mum by modelling her red Doc Martens. "What? They're red, and so are my sleeves and the lacing on my bodice. We're all coordinated."

"Coordination's not the problem," said Andromeda. The muscles of her face, thrown into relief by the surrounding darkness and the light of Tonks' wand, twitched with a visible effort at keeping hold of her perpetual calm -- a look Tonks had seen a million times on her mum's face as well as Remus', though she'd never noted the shared trait till now. "What about those lovely little red slippers we bought? I thought you liked them."

Though Andromeda's appalled panic was hysterically funny, and Tonks ordinarily would have got a huge kick out of keeping her mum going and winding her up as tightly as possible, the first chirps of the morning bird chorus were sounded by a lark.

"Don't worry, Mum, I've got the slippers." She held up her wrist, from which dangled a little red velvet bag in which she'd packed everything for her overnight stay with her parents. "I just didn't fancy turning up for my wedding with a broken neck and for once in my life planned ahead."

"That'd be the Ravenclaw genes coming through," said Ted. "Our 'Puff _can_ be practical."

"Think it's probably the Auror in me, Dad. Mad-Eye! If I were you, I'd be more worried about me doing myself a mischief today than Death Eaters. You lot are the only people in the world who know how and when and where we're doing this. And talking of when, we'd better get on!"

She turned around again and marched on, though not _quite_ as Aurorly as she would've liked due to the struggle with her flowing skirts and filmy cloak that kept catching in the breeze and pulling free of the arm she'd looped it over.

Not that she really had it in her to be _too _irritated by her clothing. There had been so many times in the past year when she'd doubted her future held a chance for her to wear wedding robes, when Remus resisted her as stubbornly as she pursed him as the only wizard she would ever consider marrying.

_Remus. _

Her steps quickened on the path, as much because she was damned if she'd be late to her own wedding as because she simply wanted to see him. After the dinner party at her parents', she'd stayed the night with them whilst Remus returned to Brockenhurst. She'd barely slept for feeling their goodnight kiss at the doorstep lingering on her lips, for aching to have his body curled around hers and his warm, heavy breath ruffling the hair at her neck. True, with the late night and the even earlier morning, they'd only been apart a few hours, but the narrow bed she'd slept in as a girl felt so strange to her now, a woman about to be married. Home no longer lay on the quiet, suburban street outside London, but nestled in the New Forest.

In _this _forest, she stopped again as the path forked abruptly around a hundreds of years old sprawling oak.

"Do you know where you're leading us, Dora?" Ted's voice filled the moment of hesitation.

"Course I do," Tonks replied, though she still did not choose a direction. She could hear Remus' rasping tones in her memory, pointing out this landmark, but his direction from here eluded her. She was sure he'd said the left...no, the right...

Her concentration was disturbed by the flapping of robes, the shuffling of feet, and a huff of frustration. "Why can't we just Apparate instead of hiking through this beastly Forest in bloody dress robes, then?"

Tonks gritted her teeth again as she swept her wand over both paths, scanning the area for some clue. "I told you I didn't care if you came in your tatty old jeans and Hobgoblins sweatshirt so long as you came. And we can't Apparate because I've never seen the place."

"And because Lupin set anti-Apparition spells around it." Mad-Eye added, just the slightest hint of a question, of distrust, in his voice.

Tonks didn't know whether Remus actually _had _done -- not out of the carelessness Mad-Eye implied and expected of everyone but himself, but out of respect for the wedding site's being Centaur territory. He would never tamper...But she nodded, not in the mood for another lecture, despite the Handfasting one amusing her.

"If you've never been there," said Ted, "then how--?"

"Remus said we'd know it when we saw it."

She turned left, down the narrower, less trampled branch of the path. When she didn't immediately hear them behind her, she threw back over her shoulder.

"Come on, you lot, catch up! I won't have Remus waiting there worrying about a runaway bride!"

As it happened, they were much closer to their destination than she'd realised; a moment later the path disappeared into a clearing of long grass, in the midst of which a grove of trees grew close together in a perfect circle. In the light of her wand she made out the white birch trunks; the small, new fruits of wild apple trees; twisted hawthorns in berry; the waxen leaves of holly bushes: all varieties of trees which Tonks remembered from Ancient Runes and Herbology represented hearth and home, family and fertility.

The fabled ancient Centaur ritual grounds.

No longer merely a fable to Tonks. Nor solely belonging to Centaurs.

At the edge of the grove, cloaked in shadow except for his face illuminated by a magical flame cupped in his long fingers, stood Remus.

Waiting for her.

Exactly as he had been waiting for her at the golden gates of Hogwarts the first time she laid eyes on him.

"Nymphdaora, your shoes!"

She couldn't be sure, but Tonks thought she might have glimpsed a smile flit across Remus' features before her mum caught her elbow and dragged her away from him, to the edge of the path. Andromeda cast a non-verbal spell (her floor polishing charm?) that smoothed the trunk of a tree so that Tonks could lean against it for balance without the bark snagging her gauzy gold cloak on it, then held Tonks' skirts off the ground whilst she set to work unlacing her boots.

Tonks, of course, paid far less attention to her shoes than to Remus. Or rather: to Remus as Mad-Eye stumped up ahead of the group. The magical eye swept Remus up and down as Mad-Eye stopped in front of him, leaning against his staff and hell-bent on security.

Oh yes -- that was definitely a badly concealed smirk as Remus' asked, "What did I write to you when you were appointed to the Defence Against the Dark Arts post at Hogwarts?"

"Some nonsense about beware Drooble's Best Blowing Gum filling in the knots in my leg, because of some useful spell or other you taught them and to let the Longbottom kid face a Boggart if I fancied a laugh," answered Mad-Eye, scowling and waving his stick as he added, "But that's not a very secure question, Lupin, since Barty Crouch Jr. read your letters and likely as not handed 'em over to the Death Eaters."

"Forgive me. I am rather preoccupied this morning."

Mad-Eye _hmphed_. "Well, I made sure Ted, Andromeda, and Tonks were the real thing, and so you'll know for sure I'm me, and you don't have to bother questioning them, I'll tell you what I said when Tonks was in hospital after the Ministry battle: she's a damn fine soldier, and if you'd abandoned Harry to go protecting her, she'd kill you before the Death Eaters could, so stop beating yourself up."

As Remus tapped his wand to the enclosure of trees so that two birch trunks vanished, forming a doorway through which the glow of firelight emanated, his gaze wandered to Tonks. She was already feeling a bit uncoordinated from a swell of emotion that Mad-Eye had said what he had for her sake as much as security's; but Remus' eyes were so bright and intense on hers that she dropped the red slipper she was putting on.

Did he have any idea the effect he had on her? Did he know how much more than the gates of to the school he'd opened to her that first day they met? Of course he understood that with the closing of the case of the stolen Snidgets, which had all but guaranteed her entrance into the Auror department, they had embarked upon their romance. But in the four years since then, romance hardly began to describe their journey.

The road stretched out long and winding behind where she was stood now, putting on her shoes in the middle of the wood. Along the way Remus had opened her heart to love: love that meant not only being _in love_, though that certainly was part of it, but love that meant a state of being. His love had ushered her into _life_ -- a life that was, without a doubt, far fuller and lavishly richer than the one she would have had if she'd never known him, and not just because she saw it through love-coloured spectacles.

This life augmented the one she'd always dreamed of; the Order of the Phoenix allowed her to bring justice to the world in a way that never would have been possible under the aegis of the crippled Ministry of Magic. She shuddered to think of what she might be now if she had not met Remus. Like Dawlish? A slave to an increasingly corrupt law, Confunded or worse because he had followed so blindly? Thank Merlin her life was in her own hands, and the hands of the people she loved, not the hands of department heads or bureaucrats or undersecretaries or even Ministers of Magic; thank God it was a life well worth the fight required of her to live it.

_And _live_ you jolly well have done_, she thought as she stood on both shod feet again, and told her mum to go on in so that she could have a moment to herself, and then with Remus.

Though the way had not, by any means, been easy, very often uphill, or engulfed in darkness, always, _always _he had been with her. Remus' hand had guided her every step of the way. Even when he'd meant to let go, he had continued to lead her where she'd learnt to love patiently, long-sufferingly, faithfully, brought her a love that believed, hoped, _endured_.

_At the end of your journey, your reward was _him_. Remus. Your bridegroom. _

The very best part, by far, was that the end of the path meant the start of a new, better one. They would be bonded to one another, for this life and the next, and no one could rend them asunder. The open door Remus ushered her parents through now (her father giving him a wary handshake and telling him he was a damn lucky bloke; her mother kissing his cheek and telling him that he looked very handsome and as happy as his bride) was the door into _their_ eternity.

In light of that, the bad that had come before, and the uncertainty that lay ahead, seemed insignificant.

Unless you were Mad-Eye.

The second Ted and Andromeda had gone inside, he poked his head out the doorway again, his eyes scanning the forest clearing, coming to rest briefly on Tonks, still leaning against her tree.

"May Dora and I have a minute, Mad-Eye?" Remus asked, meeting her gaze again, cheekily. She pulled a face at him and pushed off the tree, making her way slowly in her dainty slippers and flowing gown, up to the room of trees.

"Might be your wedding day, Lupin," said Mad-Eye, "but there's a war on still."

"A factor that weighed heavily in our asking you to being our distinguished guest of honour, so that you can exercise your constant vigilance for Dora."

Remus' pleasant smile would have put an end to the conversation if it had been anybody else, but as it was Mad-Eye...

"I was just trying to convince Tonks to do away with this hand-tying bit. Can't you do something more...I dunno, _symbolic_?"

"It _is _the symbol, Mad-Eye!" Tonks stepped on her hem and nearly went face-first into a patch of lichen, but managed to keep her balance as she hitched up her skirt. "Why don't you go in and exercise vigilance over the rest of the ceremony elements? There'll be a chalice and a knife and a trowel and a silver box you'll want to check aren't cursed."

That piqued Mad-Eye's interest, and he turned to go inside, grumbling about getting a move on before day broke and they were found by a herd of Centaurs who didn't like humans, as well as certain mask-wearing members of her family. Remus and Tonks exchanged their usual Mad-Eye-roll -- though it was an abbreviated version. As Remus' gaze settled on Tonks, his smirk falling into a gentle smile, it was obvious to her that the only person he was giving a thought to now was her.

The magical fire in his hand extinguished as he stepped into the warm light that spilled out the doorway in the trees. He extended his hand to her.

"There you are," he said.

"Here I am."

She placed her hand in his palm, and his fingers closed around hers, pulling her just a step toward him, so that the circle of light surrounded them both. Absurdly, a wave of shyness, of all things, swept over her.

_You've never been shy around Remus -- awkward, maybe, but never shy, not for one bleeding second! _

_Of course, it's also never been your wedding day to Remus. _

She swallowed, and pushed a curl of hair behind her ear before she remembered it didn't belong there today, but instead was supposed to be swept up in the elaborate arrangement of curls her mum had piled up on her head and pinned within an inch of her life, even though Tonks has insisted she thought she could get the same effect by morphing. Her hands were trembling so that she didn't dare attempt to put it back in place. She'd wreck the updo.

"Wotcher."

His grin became slightly lopsided, as though with a repressed laugh. "Good morning."

"Sorry we're late. I hope you weren't worried I'd changed my mind."

"I'd never think that. Not about you."

His gaze left hers to sweep over her, and Tonks' heart fluttered wildly at the way he at once looked as if he were absolutely delighted at the sight of her, yet couldn't quite believe his eyes.

"Elphine, you're..." His husky voice hitched.

Tonks' smile widened. What adjectives would he describe her with? _Elphine, you're the most beautiful witch I, or any other wizard, has ever had the fortune to behold? Elphine, you absolutely take my breath away? Elphine, you're--_

"...wearing a wedding gown."

It was hardly poetry, but Tonks liked it quite a lot all the same. Rather more than any of the things her crap imagination had supplied, actually. She especially loved the way his hand slid up from her hand to finger the flimsy sheer crimson fabric of her bell sleeve before his eyes snapped up to hers, again, slightly rounded now.

"Am I dreaming?" he asked.

"No," said Tonks, giggling, and grabbing for his side, "but I'll pinch you if you'd like."

She expected Remus to catch her hand before she could do, or even to squirm away, ticklish. But he was perfectly calm today, though his eyes radiated the joy she felt pulsing through her at a frenetic tempo.

"You can do whatever you please, if you look like this doing it." He added, more softly, slipping one hand inside the fold of her cloak to settle on her waist. "You're a beautiful bride."

Smiling, she realised she had not yet given him a proper look. She saw, now, in the glow of the fire behind him, that over trim black trousers he wore a knee-length, formal tunic of black silk that hugged his slim figure deliciously, especially the crimson corded belt which picked up the same hue mingled with gold in the embroidery on his straight collar and the trim of his lightweight cloak. His silver and gold shoulder-length hair shimmered against the dark fabric.

Tonks thought she'd never seen his face look younger or more peaceful or more full of laughter and joy. He looked..._at home_. She wondered if the Forbidden Forest, setting for so many of his happiest boyhood memories, must have something to do with it. Gladness surged up in her that they were marrying here, that their wedding day would crown this place with more meaning than it already held for him.

"You are, too," she said, thinking maybe she owed Dolores Umbridge a wedding photo and a note of thanks for her stupid legislation, which had inspired them to find such creative, and personally significant, venues to make a life together.

Except that would be giving her credit...

"Ta," said Remus, "only...well, I'm hardly an expert in matrimonial things, but I'd thought I was called the groom?"

Realising what she'd said -- or rather, what he was making out she'd said, Tonks rolled her eyes. "No, you're called another G-word."

"A Gryffindor? You know, you might be mistaken for one, in those colours."

"I couldn't wear Hufflepuff colours, could I, as black's hardly bridey?"

For a moment, Tonks considered telling him she'd worn his colours on purpose, since she couldn't buy a white gown without looking suspicious. Again, however, shyness overcame her. Anyway, the look on his face said he was deeply touched and knew without her saying. He had wound that loose ringlet of hair around his index finger.

"Do you think you could tuck that back into one of those hair pins? There are about a million. Unless you want Mum cutting in on the Handfasting to fix my hair."

Remus chuckled, but adopted a look of intense concentration as he swept the lock of hair up and searched for a pin.

"What did she have to say about your unconventional choice of bridal hair colour?" he asked.

"Nothing, after I told her it was my great sex colour and I'm anticipating lots of it from my new husband."

A larger section of curls fell down from Tonks' coif as Remus looked down at her with mingled amusement and disbelief that she'd really said any such thing. She was about to jab a fierce index finger in his stomach and tell him that she jolly well _had _said just that, and that he'd have hell to pay when her mum saw what he'd done to her hair, when a cough and a thump signified Mad-Eye's reappearance in the doorway. His craggy features were deeply flushed, and thinking, _Oh dear Merlin, he heard _that, Tonks was forced to fling her arms around Remus' waist to keep from falling over laughing. He, of course, calmly went right on sorting her hairdo problem.

"Everything's safe," Mad-Eye said, his voice gruffer than usual. "Even that Centaur seems on the up-and-up. If we're to have this done by daybreak, you'd best get in here."

"_Someone's_ eager to see you kiss your bride, Remus," Tonks teased, though her heart had swelled in her chest.

Mad-Eye, scowling fondly at her, was every bit as sentimental as her own dad right now. It wasn't just security he'd gone over the top with. He'd dressed to the nines for her wedding. Albeit nines that would have been slightly more fashionable when _his _father was a young man. He wore a set of brown velvet dress robes with yellowed lace at the collar and cuffs, and a frilled cravat pinned with a tiger's eye brooch. Even his grizzled grey hair was pulled away from his weathered face, tied back with a satin ribbon, and he'd polished his wooden leg to a high gloss. His appearance made Tonks want to laugh -- not out of amusement (well, maybe a _little_ bit out of amusement), but for how much she loved him.

Impulsively, she released Remus, who'd finished with her hair, and pecked Mad-Eye's cheek. She thought maybe she saw his eye -- the non-magical one, of course -- mist, but she couldn't be sure because the idea of it made her own eyes well and her vision blur.

"We'll be right there," she told him, giving his shoulder a gentle nudge. "We just need...one more minute."

"Aye," Mad-Eye nodded, once, and turned on his heel. A seasoned soldier. Only now it seemed, deferring to her.

_Just cos it's your wedding day and he doesn't want you to see him cry. Just you wait, Tonks, next Order mission, he'll be back to criticising where you keep your wand. _

"Well." Remus' husky voice drew her gaze from the doorway back to him. "This is it. Are you ready?"

As if by the flick of a wand, the air between them changed with a subtle shift in his mood. He was still happy, Tonks could see -- joyously happy, even; she could feel it pulsing warmly from him as they stood so close to one another. But it was tempered now. Solemn.

So instead of the playful, _Do you even need to ask_, which she would have said just a moment ago, she told him simply, "I'm so very ready to be your wife. Are you?"

The corner of his mouth twitched, and the Marauderish twinkle gleamed in his eye.

_So much for solemnity. _

"I swear to Merlin, Remus, if you say no, you're not ready to be my bloody _wife_, I'll--"

She stopped short. Remus had Conjured a bouquet of red and white roses and star-shaped stephanotises.

"I have never been readier for anything than to be your husband," he said, his fingertips brushing hers as he handed the flowers to her, and offered her his arm.

Everything within her went still and quiet then. She was in a state of such absolute calm that for just a fraction of a second she thought she had to be dreaming this.

_It's your _wedding day_, for Merlin's sake! You're positively bubbly and bouncy at Christmas, or your bloody birthday. Shouldn't you be dancing -- very badly, mind, cos you're Nymphadora Uncoordinated Tonks -- through that door and down the aisle? _

She wasn't dancing, though, nor had any inclination to do so much as skip. Impossible as it seemed that she could be this calm, she knew she was fully awake. Her senses were far too acute for it to be otherwise. The bouquet she clutched stirred her with its fresh, heady sweetness. Remus' body felt so solid and masculine as he covered her hand in the crook of his arm with his, tucking her close against his side to lead her (so _confidently_, which must mean he felt exactly as she did) through the doorway in the trees where they would become wizard and wife.

Inside, she blinked at the unexpected brightness of the forest room (which was a great deal larger than it had appeared from the outside, by enchantment, though she oughtn't to have been surprised, as Centaurs didn't exactly take up minimal space). The source of the light was a ring of torches that formed a second, smaller circle in the centre of the room, but still Tonks looked up to check that she and Remus hadn't lingered longer than she realised and had been too absorbed in each other to notice the sun had risen.

Though the topmost branches of the ancient, wild trees reached out across the space to each other, almost a full canopy of golden-green, there was a gap at the very top which, given the importance of heavenly bodies in Centaur lore, she suspected must have been intentionally opened. Smoke swirled upward through it from the torches below, grey and wispy against the patch of sky that was darker than midnight now that the moon had set. Her eyes, however, were drawn from the blue-black backdrop to the stars scattered across it.

Or rather, to one star: Sirius. Tonks swore that the Dog Star shone more brilliantly than usual now; it seemed entirely possible that it could do, as she considered how its namesake would be beaming if he were here, for Remus' sake, even if he never had come around about _her _being right for Remus. Had Remus noticed the star? If he looked up, would his thoughts be anything like hers? He must wish his boyhood mates were here today, sharing in his joy. When Tonks looked at him, though, she saw nothing of wistfulness on his face; only that same expression of grave certainty as he looked across the room at her parents, stood beyond the ring of torches.

Her dad, on the other hand, definitely looked wistful, she discovered when her gaze followed Remus'. He grinned when she met his eye, albeit a little wobbly, and she saw his broad chest rise sharply, possibly due to his breath hitching with emotion, though Tonks chose to believe it was a swell of pride at seeing what she'd grown up to be; he'd looked rather like this the day she was awarded her Auror badge, and after the ceremony he'd caught her in a bear hug and told her how proud he was of her, teasing her that he was also a little afraid of the power she now wielded. Even so, she gave him a smile which she hoped said, _I know what I'm doing, Dad, so just relax, okay? You gave me the best life I could ask for, and Remus will carry on. _As if he had understood her silent message, he nodded, once, and exhaled heavily.

Tonks' gaze only just touched her mum, whose pride and joy were undeniable in her shining grey eyes -- that was, until they flicked sideways to Mad-Eye. He held his wand at the ready, and his magical eye kept roving every which way, over the doorway in the trees which had closed up behind her and Remus and up at the space between the branches above, and seemed unlikely to let down his guard for as long as the ceremony should last. Tonks knew that when the time came for photographs afterward, Andromeda would be tempted to Stun the eye.

For Tonks' part, it was all she could do not to laugh or cry with another swell of affection for her mentor. Last night at dinner, he'd given her and Remus his Sneakoscope for a wedding present. In a rare intentionally comical moment, he'd said that a pair of dazed and constantly distracted newlyweds needed it more than he did.

"Who comes to this sacred ground?" A voice rang out, at once clear as a tolling bell and deep as the earth. "Who comes, and what boon do you desire here?"

As if they had been Summoned, Tonks turned at the exact moment Remus tugged against her as he stepped into the circle. They approached the altar where Firenze presided, and Tonks thought the Centaur looked like a god, his white-blond hair and palomino equine body gilt in the torchlight, as if he were the sculpted image from the Fountain of Magical Brethren come to life. Tonks had never seen more staggeringly blue eyes before; not even Remus' could compare.

Yet there was something very Remus-like in Firenze's eyes and etched on his beautiful, noble face. Palpable loneliness emanated from him as he stood alone in this place that belonged to his kind, the scars across his bare alabaster chest reminding Tonks of the bitter struggle of which everyone in this room was a part. She drew closer to Remus, remembering her own words to him about not having to face this uncertain future, this war, alone; once again she was glad, and thankful, that Remus had thought to get married in this woodland room, in this way, by Firenze with his ancient wisdom, instead of in some strange Muggle office, by an even stranger Muggle registrar, with a ceremony that meant nothing in their world.

Here they were welcomed as brethren; not just as fellow outcasts, but blood kin, because they had the "wrong" blood. Magical Beings...Magical Beasts...Magical Creatures...The Ministry and Voldemort could call them what they liked, but here they stood, what they were, without apology.

There certainly was nothing apologetic in Remus' hoarse, but firm and unwavering, voice as he answered Firenze:

"I am Remus John Lupin, and my desire is to be bonded to Nymphadora Tonks, whom I love."

"I'm Nymphadora Andromeda Tonks..."

She paused, thinking that she'd _never _introduced herself by her full name, never even _said _her Christian name unless it was to tell someone _not _to call her by it; a puff of breath from Remus which she knew was a snigger told her he'd had the exact thought. Normally she'd have pulled a face at him, but it didn't seem entirely appropriate at the moment, so she settled for pinching the crook of his arm with her fingers that still rested there, then went on:

"My desire is to be bonded to Remus Lupin, whom I love..."

As she said _bonded_, Remus' fingers curved underneath her palm that still rested in the crook of his arm.

"Do you do desire this of your own free will?" Firenze asked. "Do you come here today without coercion or pressure from other persons?"

"I do," replied Tonks without hesitation, and Remus echoed her quietly.

"Do you feel capable of fulfilling the duties to your partner which this bond shall require? If either of you feels insufficient, now is the time to declare it."

Silence, Tonks thought, had never spoken more eloquently than words.

Firenze turned from them to address her parents and Mad-Eye. "If anyone present here today knows of any reason why this wizard should not be bound in marriage to this witch, speak now, or forever hold your peace."

Tonks didn't want to look, but she couldn't not, and for one paralysing moment she saw Ted looking as uncomfortable in his dark blue dress robes as Andromeda did serene in her silvery green ones, his face etched with conflict. But when he saw Tonks' eyes on him, he gave her a smile. A resigned one, she couldn't deny, but it was enough, and when Firenze asked if those in attendance would bless and celebrate the union and support their marriage in times of trial without coming between them, it was Ted's _I will_ that sounded first, and lingered longest in the air.

"Blessed be you who attend this glorious celebration," Firenze proclaimed, "who today shall witness a transformation."

As he turned back to Remus and Tonks, he reached for a chalice stood on the altar. He lifted it high, and his voice rose to a lilting pitch: "Blessed be this witch and this wizard, who shall be united this day, two souls joined into one in the bonds of love."

He offered Remus the cup, which was empty, but it filled with golden Elderflower wine as he said, "Drink together."

Remus did not immediately hold the cup for Tonks to drink, because his gaze was drawn by a bit of a scuffle had arisen from the wedding guests. She hadn't managed to turn in time to see Mad-Eye leap for it, but she guessed that he had by the way her dad had him by the arms from behind, holding him back.

"Don't make me throw you off me, Ted," Mad-Eye grunted, struggling against the large hands. "Think you'd want to make sure your only child won't be pois--"

The word died, unfinished, at Tonks' glare. Which was rather remarkable, given the amazing contortions she was working with her facial muscles to glare instead of laugh -- an expression, even more remarkably, mirrored on her mother's face.

But when Mad-Eye stopped struggling, looking as defeated as Tonks had ever seen him, and Ted released him, Remus let out a chuckle, and Tonks couldn't hold back any longer. She laughed so hard that she could barely swallow the wine Remus offered her; and when it was her turn to hold the cup for him, she thought for sure the fronts of one or both of their wedding clothes would be doused. Somehow -- maybe it was just the luckiest of days -- they got through the ritual without spilling, and the solemn mood had settled over them again as Firenze Vanished the chalice.

"Remus Lupin, if you will take your bride's left hand in your right; Nymphadora Tonks, if you will take your groom's left hand in your right..."

It seemed that the comic elements of their lives were determined not to let gravity temper all this day's joy. As Tonks laid her bouquet on the altar and clasped hands with Remus in the manner Firenze instructed, mischief tugged at the corner of Remus' mouth and danced wickedly in his eyes. Tonks knew that he was laughing at how today she couldn't escape the repeated use of her name.

_You'll have to get back at him, Tonks. You'll have to get him _good...

But she couldn't think about sweet prankster revenge; not it the middle of her wedding.

"Your hands, thus joined," said Firenze, "form the shape of Gebo, Rune of Love. Gebo symbolises the giving of a gift which must be reciprocated. No greater examples of this gift exist than the bond of marriage you offer one another today, or the children you will give each other by this marriage."

As Firenze spoke, Remus' gaze drifted down to their clasped hands, then up over her left wrist, where her sleeve had slipped up to reveal her silver Rune bracelet. He had given it to her, years ago, and it was the only jewellery she wore today, apart from her engagement ring. Gebo, with its opal nestled at the centre, had accompanied Remus' first uttering of the words _I love you _to her.

_This is right_, Tonks thought for the millionth time. _So, so right that we should be married this way_.

"...and so you will speak your vows," Firenze's voice pulled her back to the present, "the same words, plighting the same troth, one to another."

He Conjured two cords and laid them cross-wise over their joined hands.

"As you, Nymphadora, do give yourself to be my wife, I, Remus John Lupin, do give you my heart, and offer you my hands. I shall seek no release from our bond, nor shall I turn away from you. Wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. Not even death shall part you and me."

Tonks trembled as he spoke his vows; though as she pledged them back to him, she wasn't certain she didn't tremble more. It wasn't that the wedding vows were new sentiments. She had said as much each of the million times they'd argued about marriage. It was that this was it. The last time. Remus accepted them now, as he became her husband. He believed in her, believed in them...This was all she'd ever hoped for, all she'd ever dreamed of...

When the last words of the wedding vows fell from her mouth, the two cords draped over Remus' and her hands twined together, into one strong rope, and bound their hands.

"As this knot is tied," said Firenze, "so are your lives now bound. Two entwined in love, bound by commitment and fear, sadness and joy, by hardship and victory, anger and reconciliation, all of which shall strengthen this union. And though these cords shall be removed, the knot shall be set for eternity in these rings you shall wear upon your hands."

Though Tonks had not seen him Summon them, Firenze held their gold bands in his palms. After a speech about the rings' circular shape symbolising the eternal knot and the Wheel of Life (she only half-heard it, for thinking about the other night's conversation in the pub, and the ensuing one in bed in which Remus had conceded to engrave _Elphine _on the inside of his ring), Firenze said, "Then let the circle be cast."

He stepped around the altar, hooves gently clomping on the hard-packed ground as he plodded across to the easternmost point of the circle of torches, then, stopping, said, "Air is at the beginning of all things, the direction of East, and the dawning of a new day. May the element of Air bless your lives with continuing renewal of love."

He Conjured a white flame in his palm holding the rings, and it burned as he followed the arc to the Southern point in the circle, where he asked for the blessing of Fire's warmth, and the flame changed to red; at the West it became blue as he called on Water's vitality; and at the North, green, for Earth's solidity.

It was an ancient magic Firenze invoked, far older than wizards and witches, and it filled every inch of the room, as if it were a tangible substance with a physical form. In fact it exceeded the space, and Tonks felt her body thrum as it swept through her, settling in the greatest quantity in her hand beneath the cord. She and Remus would be bound by a magic as real, as irrefutable, as irrevocable, as that which flowed through their veins.

The chord joining their hands vanished, and they exchanged rings with simple promises to remember their vows, and then Firenze proclaimed:

"Through the powers of love between yourselves and this company, I do now pronounce Remus and Nymphadora Lupin Handfast. Blessed be your marriage!"

_Nymphadora Lupin. _

_Handfast._

_Marriage. _

It was...done. They were married. She and was Remus' wife! And Remus was her husband!

_And you're standing there gawping like an idiot. _

A grinning idiot.

But that was okay. She wasn't the only one. Remus was stood there mirroring the wide-eyed, dazed happiness she felt stretching her face.

_Happy. _

Oh sweet Merlin, _yes_, she'd never been happier.

Which meant she really ought to do something about it. She hadn't moved a muscle, except the ones involved in the act of grinning, since she'd held Remus' left hand in both her shaking ones and slipped the golden ring onto his finger. She was still holding it.

Clutching it, in fact.

With rather white-knuckled fingers.

She dropped his hand...

...but only so she could dart up on her toes and throw her arms around his neck.

His laughter rumbled in his chest, and through her, as his arms went around her waist. Over his shoulder, she saw Mad-Eye looking at his pocket watch, catching her eye and smiling for just a split second as he glanced up to check the sky and compare it to the time. Both her parents were beaming, her mum dabbing at her eyes with a lacy hankie, her dad wiping his with the back of his hand. Tonks noticed that at their sides, almost lost in the flowing sleeves of their robes, their hands clasped tightly together.

"Do I get to kiss my wife now?" Remus asked.

The closest thing to amusement Tonks had seen on Firenze's noble face crossed it as he Summoned a knife and silver box from the altar. "One ritual remains, and that is to perform your first act together as husband and wife."

It wouldn't have mattered, Tonks supposed, if Remus had never quite managed to get that loose strand of hair back into her coif, as the custom called for each of them to cut off a lock of each other's hair. Remus looked a little nervous as he held the blade to Tonks' pink curls, but after a reminder that she could grow her hair back instantly if he made a mess of it and that he was the one that ought to be afraid of being made bald by his new bride, he snipped off a few strands. In an act of exemplary Gryffindor courage and marital trust, he handed the knife over to her -- _his wife!_ -- and soon pink and silver hairs were mingled together in the silver box, which they knelt and buried together using a golden trowel.

"_Now_ I may kiss my bride," said Remus as he helped her up.

"Yes, Remus Lupin," said Firenze, smiling. "Kiss her well."

Remus did exactly that, though Tonks thought it probably didn't have much to do with being told to by a Centaur. Not that she was thinking of much at all, with Remus' fingertips tracing shiver-inducing patterns on her cheeks and tangling in her curls as his lips moved softly, yet eagerly, over hers.

_Your husband_. _Remus Lupin is kissing you, and he's your _husband.

When they drew back from one another, Firenze had laid a broomstick on the ground in front of them.

"Step forth," said the Centaur with a sweeping bow, "into your new life and rejoice."

Rejoicing in new life -- _married life _-- was another thing they didn't need to be told to do. Tonks definitely didn't; and as she looked up into Remus' broadly grinning, almost wildly happy, face, she knew he didn't, either. It was as plain as day that that his thoughts were the same place hers were: on the little cottage he'd prepared for her in the New Forest, their home that lay at the end of one path and at the start of another that had no end. Only each other...Remus and...Nymphadora...Lupin. And maybe someday one or two smaller Lupins, as well.

As they clasped hands and jumped over the broom, the sun broke over the horizon.

A new day had dawned.

_The End_


End file.
